Reading Your First DnD Character Sheet: Explaining Classes and Stats to First Time Players

Playing your first game of DnD? Start here!

Nothing is scarier to a new Dungeons and Dragons player than seeing their first character sheet and imagining having to be responsible for understanding all of those numbers and tables and what they mean.

Don't be afraid! You're about to play your first game of DnD, and it's going to be a blast. Trust me. Here are two important things to understand before you start playing your very first Dungeons and Dragons session:

1. You don't need to understand every rule.

Sure, you may be one of those unique people who loves to read rulebooks for fun, but most likely all you need to know is just enough to get you playing, and trust me, that is enough to have fun. Your friends and GM at the table can help you with rules. I repeat - you do not need to understand every rule to start playing Dungeons and Dragons.

2. Just worry about your character sheet.

There's a lot of stuff in the world of Dungeons and Dragons - but the good news is that is the GM's job! All you have to do is know who your character is, have a rough understanding of their abilities, and then you, just like your character, can explore the world and learn as you go. Focus on understanding your character sheet first, and the rest of the rules of DnD will be learned as you play.

So with that being said, here are some simplified and fast ways of helping you understand some of the basic elements of Dungeons and Dragons in 'normal' terms. 

Ability Scores

The first and most widely utilized statistics used in the Dungeons and Dragons 5e (5th edition, the current edition) are 6 general qualities that boil down the strengths and weaknesses of your character.

Strength: This represents a character’s athleticism and brute muscle power. Used when swinging melee weapons.

Dexterity: This represents a character's agility, precision, and poise. Used to fire ranged weapons and determine how hard you are to hit.

Constitution: This represents a characters stamina or fortitude, and directly corresponds to how many hit points your character will have.

Intelligence: This represents analytical thinking, mental sharpness and memory. Wizards also use it to learn and cast spells.

Wisdom: Often confused with intelligence, this represents a larger awareness of state of being, insight into outside information, deeper intuition and emotional power. It is used by many to cast and resist magic.

Charisma: This represents a character's social skills, their performative qualities and self confidence. It is also used by some classes to cast spells.

The Tomato Method

For me, I find the most helpful way to quickly translate this information is using an analogy. For the purposes of this mental exercise, you will be using tomatoes as an object to represent the different ways a character might interact with their world using each of the 6 abilities.

• Strength is how hard and far you can throw a tomato. 

• Dexterity is how accurately you can throw or juggle the tomato. 

• Constitution is how many tomatoes you could survive being hit by without dying.

• Intelligence is knowing that tomatoes are fruits, their biological information and their chemistry. 

• Wisdom is having the awareness to put a tomato into a salad or to spy it hiding in someone's pocket.

• Charisma is the ability to convince someone to eat the tomato.

If you're a GM, it can be helpful to share this analogy with your players when starting a new game of DnD. Not only is it simple and fun but it allows for your players to imagine, on a basic level, which ways of interacting with the world define their character.

How Do I Pick My Attribute Scores?

There are several ways of generating ability scores outlined in the Player's Handbook, but almost all of them allow a player to choose which scores to assign to which attributes.

The simple rule here is to place the highest numbers in the attributes you want to use to interact with the world. If you are excited about breaking, destroying, and overpowering things, you should put a high attribute score in Strength. If you want to be a bookish know-it all with a strong understanding of the history and lore of the world, put a high score in Intelligence. If you are eager to deceive and charm your way out of trouble, Charisma is the choice for you.

Though this may seem backwards to many players, I think it can be helpful to assign your attribute skills BEFORE you pick your class. There are many types of fighters and bards, and the attribute scores are often easier for new players to understand.

Pro Tip: Dexterity is the attribute in DnD that is referenced the most. It is a good idea to put a high number in Dexterity regardless of your character focus. It shows up in a lot of skills (most importantly stealth!), is used to dodge a lot of nasty magic that will get thrown at you, determines how quickly you can act in combat, and also determines how hard it is for enemies to hit you. I once built a character with an 8 in Dexterity as a bit of a joke. I had a good time playing the game, but I was almost killed in about every combat we got into, so be warned.

How Do I Pick My DnD Class?

I’ve found in my experience as a Dungeon Master, most players might have more intuitive feelings about picking a character Race by being drawn to the look of their character, but making distinctions between various classes often gets muddy as it delves into the skills, qualities and lifestyle of the character. Additionally there are a lot of subclasses and narrative choices that hinge directly on the choices made around selecting a class, so differentiating common mixups is important for early players.

But never fear! We'll walk you through several simple steps in picking a Class for your first DnD character.

1. Think about which Attribute excites you most

Every DnD class has a primary ability score - essentially the thing that will get used the most to activate that Class's special abilities. For example, the Bard class utilizes Charisma as its primary modifier, meaning that Bards will likely roll Charisma more than other players. Having a high score in Charisma means your Bard will be stronger, and you'll have an easier time using your special rules and abilities that make them feel like a Bard.

Here is a list of each Attribute score and the classes primarily associated with them

• Strength: Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins

• Dexterity: Rogues, Rangers, Fighters

• Constitution: Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins

• Intelligence: Wizards

• Wisdom: Clerics, Monks, Paladins, Rangers, Druids

• Charisma: Bards, Sorcerors, Warlocks

This is not prescriptive - playing a Fighter with a very high Intelligence ability could be fun, like a nerdy duelist or wise and aged archer. Just keep in mind that the Fighter's specific abilities and special features will almost all hinge around rolling Strength or Dexterity.

2. Within that Attribute, pick your flavor of Hero

Keeping all of the classes and their strengths separate is not as hard as it might seem. Here's a fast rn down of each class. If you're quickly building a character, you can feel free to just focus on the ones that are associated with the attribute scores that interest you most.

Barbarians - Headstrong Fighters

Barbarians gain their power through temporary power surges of rage. Rage is a berzerker ability that makes them superpowered in combat for a short time but also can make them an easier target for certain attacks and limits their options. In other words you are okay taking risks and jumping in headfirst to solve a problem.

Bards - Tricky Team Players

Bards gain their power through spoken and performed arts. Bards are defined by their ability to grant 'inspiration' to their allies, pushing them to feats of greatness. They are spellcasters with an emphasis on charming and illusions. They also are very good at a wide variety of odd skills, meaning they are kind of swiss army knives. Good at helping the party solve a lot of problems, but a bit weak on their own.

Clerics - Magic Protectors

Clerics gain their power through devotion to a deity or higher power. Clerics are magic users who get their magic from a deity, and have many abilities that allow them to grant hit points, protection, or buffs to their allies. Don't assume that they are all light and rainbows though - you can be a cleric of a god of Death, War, or Trickery, but your spells will still most likely focus on solving problems and assisting your allies.

Druids - Nature Casters

Druids gain their power through devotion to ancient natural power. Druids are defined by their connection to animals and nature magic. Some druids can transform into animals, and most of their spells are based around some form of nature, with a focus on summoning, damage, and transformation.

Fighters - Straightforward Combat Heroes

Fighters gain their power from developing specific weapon mastery. I tend to think of Fighters as the most straightforward fantasy heroes (which is not a bad thing!). Fighters are defined by their ability to take many actions in combat, do a lot of damage, and stay alive for a long time. Your abilities tend to be straightforward and can leave you mental space to roleplay a fun personality without having to juggle abilities or worry about dying or getting bored in combat.

Monks - Slow Burn Masters

Monks gain their power through dedication to their body and it’s purity. Monks are the martial artists of the DnD world, and are defined by their ability to eventually become demi-gods, who can dodge all incoming attacks, kill people with a single punch, walk on water, and even avoid aging. My one caveat with Monks is they feel a bit weak for a long time, and only start getting really fun around level 10. But then they become veritable ninja gods.

Paladins - Magic Fighters

Paladins use their martial strength in the name of a higher power to receive additional power. Paladins are defined by their combat magic. They can use magic to make their attacks very deadly and have a host of abilities that make them hard to kill and dangerous. Think of them like a more complicated Fighter with some cool flavor around sacred oaths. Also one of the few spellcasters that can wear a bunch of armor.

Rangers - Trackers and Hunters

Rangers gain their power from their knowledge of the environment and imbuing their actions with nature magic. Rangers are defined by their ability to survive in the outdoors and hunt down enemies. To be honest, the Ranger class is one that the DnD community considers the 'weakest', in that many of their abilities are just weaker versions of Fighter, Druid, or Cleric abilities. That said, they have some cool abilities that make them specialists at fighting certain creatures and hunting down and tracking foes, so if you want to lean into that flavor they are a great choice.

Rogues - Thieves and Assassins

Rogues gain their power from their agility and scheming. Rogues are defined by their ability to deal 'sneak attack' damage to unsuspecting foes. They are also very good at many skills, making them natural pickpockets, climbers, or highly intelligent and slippery. Rogues are considered one of the 'stronger' classes to play, as they have some abilities in combat that allow them to bend the rules and deal lots of extra damage.

Sorcerors - Flexible Spellcasters

Sorcerors gain their power from a bloodline or ancestral gift. Sorcerors are defined by their ability to bend the rules of magic to cast spells quickly or multiple spells in a turn. In their lore they are 'natural' magic users, who were born with mutant or inherent abilities. They have access to a lot of spells and can expend energy to use their spells in special ways.

Warlocks - Reliable Spellcasters

Warlocks gains their power from a bargain made with an entity or deity. Warlocks are defined by their small number of spells that they can cast consistently and powerfully. In their lore they have made a contract with a powerful cosmic monster or undead to get their abilities. They don't have that many spells, but can use some spells and powerful abilities for free unlimited times.

Wizards - Fully Reliant on Magic

Wizards gains their power through study and dedication to arcane preservation. Wizards are defined by their access to basically every spell, but their lack of any other abilities. They have very low hit points and are basically prohibited from using weapons and armor. As a trade-off they have access to basically every type of magic and can cast extremely powerful spells no one else can cast.

3. Remember that roleplay trumps everything on your character sheet

Your character sheet is important, and you'll reference it plenty - but it does not need to define your character. Think of your Attributes and Class as a helpful guide. A Wizard could be a hapless researcher, a scheming sneaky thief, or a noble warrior. Likewise a Barbarian could be a slavering monster or a thoughtful and precise researcher.

Your special abilities in combat and in some roleplay situations will be dictated by your class, but they are open to deep interpretation. At the end of the day thing of a character that excites you, and stick to that concept, and bend your abilities to fit into your special character's story.

How do I pick my Skills?

The last big thing to figure out with your character is your Skills. Skills are essentially non-magic trades or activities that your player may have experience in. These are based off of your Class and your Background (in other words the job you had before you started adventuring). The Player's Handbook gives you options to choose frome.

Most of the time when you are trying to do anything in DnD, the DM will pick one of the 18 skills and ask you to make a 'skill roll'. You will roll a 20 sided die and add a number to the result based on how good you are at a skill. The good news is that everyone can attempt all 18 of the skills. Unlike magic or special class abilities, which are limited to only some characters, every hero can attempt to swim, climb, pick pockets, sing, or lie.

With this in mind, I tend to encourage players to not stress about skills too much. Pick the skills you think sound fun to use and don't look back. Picking a skill will never limit what you can do as an adventurer, it will just give you a little boost in some areas.

Each skill is associated with one of the six ability scores. In other words, if you have high Charisma, you are naturally going to be very good at performing and deceit, even if you have not practiced.

You will notice that Intelligence and Wisdom apply to lots of skills, and no skills apply to Constitution. Your constitution modifier will determine how many hit points you gain each level, so is important for that reason alone.

Strength Skills

• Athletics: How good you are at jumping, climbing, swimming etc.

Dexterity Skills

• Acrobatics: How good you are at graceful maneuvering, like flips, falls, and tumbles

• Sleight of Hand: How manually dextrous you are. Used for picking pockets, picking locks, shuffling cards etc.

• Stealth: How sneaky you are

Intelligence Skills

• Arcana: Your knowledge of magical things and ability to attune to magical items

• History: Your knowledge of past events

• Investigation: Your ability to understand something and draw conclusions from them

• Nature: Your knowledge about plants, animals, and ecology

• Religion: Your knowledge of deities, cults, and their followers

Wisdom Skills

• Animal Handling: Your ability to ride, tame, and interact with animals

• Insight: Your ability to read the body language and intentions of other characters

• Medicine: Your ability to stabilize hurt allies

• Perception: Your ability to sense danger or spot things in your surroundings

• Survival: Your ability to live off the land or gather resources

Charisma Skills

• Deception: Your ability to lie

• Intimidation: Your ability to frighten and coerce others

• Performance: Your ability to tell stories, dance, sing, or otherwise entertain

• Persuasion: Your ability to gently convince a character of something

The character sheet is designed to clearly show your modifier in all of these skills, so though it may seem like a lot, you don't have to remember all of these. Your DM will tell you when you need to roll any given skill.

Skills that are easy to Mix Up

There are some skills that are easy to mix up. Here is a fast overview of a few skills that can often cause confusion at the table, and soem easy ways to differentiat them.

What is the difference between Athletics and Acrobatics in DnD?

Athletics refers to any situation requiring physical strength like throwing, pulling, swimming, climbing and jumping a great distance. Acrobatics refers to staying on one’s feet or balanced. Acrobatics can also include any specific movements in the air like diving, rolling, or stunts. A jump to a narrow windowsill would require acrobatics whereas jumping between the gap of two buildings would utilize athletics. 

What is the difference between Sleight of Hand and Stealth in DnD?

Stealth is used whenever an individual is trying to go unnoticed, whereas Sleight of Hand is trying to perform a task in plain view of others. Sleight of Hand is certainly for movements smaller than the whole body in general but the hidden desired effect is what creates the roll. Stealth should be used even for small situations that would involve discovery of the PC whereas Sleight of Hand would be used if they were already discovered and trying to hide only their actions. 

What is the difference between Arcana, History, and Religion in DnD?

In general, any questions around the nature of magic or if something contains magic ability can immediately be referred to as an Arcana check. In a situation where a character is searching for historical arcane information or whether or not they remember a piece of arcana, or magical traditions it is always an Arcana check. Historical details such as the material people and events that occurred outside of or within a character's own past is considered a History check. Religious knowledge contains the understanding of deities and their followers. For example, when studying a powerful ancient cult item, an Arcana check would reveal the items abilities, a Religion check would reveal its importance or use to the cult, and a History check would reveal the doings of that cult or deity in the past.

What is the difference between Perception, Investigation, and Insight in DnD? 

This is likely a Dungeon Master’s most mixed up skill stat as it is the decision most often placed before them when their players ask them what they can find/see somewhere. The best rule of thumb is that investigation is used when you’re looking for something specific whereas perception refers to looking without knowing what you’re going to find yet. Investigation would be used to look for a particular person in a crowd, whereas a perception check would reveal they’re disguised and being kidnapped on a far corner of the square. Perception is often used to see if a character can sense an incoming danger or catch a clue as it passes. Insight is specifically about trying to search for information within a person, hidden within their tone and delivery. Insight is used to try and suspect any underlying motives or whether or not a person is lying to you. Insight into another player is contested by either persuasion or deception depending on if the PC is telling the truth or not. Insight is similar to investigation where it is a pointed skill, whereas perception specifically is about a broader awareness of the situation at hand. It’s helpful to remember that investigation is using the logic based intelligence skill whereas perception and insight are using wisdom based feeling and intuition. 

What is the difference between Survival and Nature in DnD?

Similar to how the base ability score of Intelligence and Wisdom help us differentiate between Investigation and Perception, Nature and Survival are respectively Intelligence and Wisdom skills. I find these two fulfill two sides of the same coin and illustrate how easily Intelligence and Wisdom skills can get mixed up. Nature refers to all of the lore information surrounding nature: weather events, botany, animal anatomy or behavior, ecology, and terrain. The Survival skill covers the physical application of any of this knowledge through actions and navigating through natural challenges. Natural biology knowledge can be high with very little ability around physically tracking and hunting in the same character. 

How to tell apart the Charisma skills in DnD 

The 4 Charisma skills very often get mixed up with each other because of the social specificities of their definitions. All of the charismatic skills garner their definitions from their expressed versus underlying intent.

Firstly, performance is used for any earnest display of words, song, dance, all meant with the intent of distracting or entertaining without ulterior intent.

Persuasion would refer to an attempt to convince or sway a character towards a desired response, but without any presented dishonestly to the NPC. A player must be personally honest with the Dungeon Master on if they are or not actively lying or being dishonest as a character and this determines whether or not to roll Persuasion or Deception. It’s between the player and DM to decide how much omitting of the truth merits deceit versus when you’re telling selective truths. In a situation where Persuasion or Deception is used, a player or NPC can make a contested Insight check to see if they can perceive if they’re using persuasion or deception.

Intimidation doesn’t deal with honesty as it simply refers to any situation where there is a threat of violence, or utilizing fear-striking elements to coerce a subject into the desired compliance. Something as simple as placing a hand on a weapon can change a persuasive inquiry to an intimidating threat. However, even in that situation, if the front was all performative and the character was really hiding other intentions it could still be considered Deception if that is the strongest underlying intent.

At the end of the day...

Remember that it is a game, and intended to be fun and relaxing! You and the DM can be the ultimate final word on what feels right in any given situation.

These basic mistakes and clearing them up will help remove some barriers around the most structurally important mechanics in the game. By breaking down the numbers that fill in the biggest empty blocks on the character sheet, you can begin to fill in the gaps in what makes an empty character sheet daunting to those unfamiliar with rules. By translating the stat blocks to the player as a system to access literally any action they could imagine, it gives early players a clearer motivation to try and understand  the mechanics as a way of applying their imagination into real game scenarios in the future.