D&D Stats: What The Typical 5E Party *Actually* Looks Like
The days of Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard are dead and gone, and we’ve got the data to prove it. Come and see what a typical party actually looks like.
It was once a truth universally acknowledged that a typical D&D party consisted of a cleric, a rogue, a slab of beef in plate mail, and a wizard. That idea is outdated, however, and the truth is stranger than the fiction. Thanks to D&D Beyond’s player data, we can put to rest the classic four, and instead, take a look at what the new typical party looks like. Most games tend to get to at least level 5, which gives you time to multiclass and play around with your options, so we’re going with that as our baseline. Here we go folks, the new D&D Party, by the numbers.
via D&D Beyond
First things first, let’s take a look at the data. Earlier this year, D&D Beyond took a look at what people were playing across their player base from folks who had unlocked all player options (as well as just a set of all their users), and the data came back quite surprising.
The vast majority of characters are multiclassed, with a few exceptions. Nearly everyone’s getting in on Fighter as one of the top 3 classes. But in the percentages, you can also see how popular these classes are among the userbase. So let’s take a look at the numbers and build our new typical party. But before we do that, we need to figure out what subclasses and species each of these classes will be. Fortunately, we have more charts!
Here’s a look at the top subclasses (without multiclassing–we don’t yet have that data, but this gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect). And here’s a look at the top list of species with all options unlocked. It’s pretty wild.
From the data we can see, our party leader is almost certainly a Warlock (representing a whopping 13% of the player base–wonder if Critical Role has anything to do with that). Our Warlock is almost guaranteed to be a multiclass character, and it looks like Fighter leads by a significant margin. Without question, this character is a hexblade and is probably a human. So let’s go with that.
Player 1: Warlock (Hexblade)/Fighter – Human
Alright. Next up we’ve got a Fighter, coming in at 12%, and interestingly enough, they’re not all that likely to be multiclassed. We rolled some dice to check, and it turns out, we’ve got just a single class fighter as our second-in-line. We’ve got pretty even odds as to whether or not they’re a Battlemaster or Champion (they might even be an Eldritch Knight). But we’re playing the odds here, and so Battlemaster wins out, as does Half-Elf.
Player 2: Fighter (Battlemaster) – Half-Elf
Next up we have a Cleric coming in as a very close third–and even more likely to be multiclassed than the Warlock. This party has a lot of levels of Fighter in it when all is said and done. Life Domain is the most popular subclass by a mile, so obviously that’s what our Cleric here is–and moving down the list of species, we’ve got Dwarf up next.
Player 3: Cleric (Life Domain)/Fighter – Dwarf
After our Cleric it looks like we’ve got a Sorcerer who is flush with the power of the Dragons… and a little extra Fighter with that 90% multiclass rate. Draconic Bloodline ekes out a victory in terms of popularity, and Aasimar is next up on our popular list, which makes for a very interesting character.
Player 4: Sorcerer (Draconic Bloodline)/Fighter – Aasimar
She’s in armor because she’s a fighter–but she’s definitely a sorcerer.
Finally, we have a 5th option for you folks, because 5 is the new average party size–though only just. If there’s a 5th character present, they’re probably a Rogue, and by the law of averages, human wins out again. They’re an assassin, and they may or may not be multi-classed — but if they are, it’s almost certainly Fighter.
Player 5: Rogue (Assassin)/Fighter (probably) – Human
And that, folks, is what the typical D&D party looks like. A far cry from the ’80s.
Or even 3.x’s Tordek, Regdar, Lidda, and Mialee.
It’s a bold new, fighter-filled world we live in. So get out there and action surge.
Happy Adventuring!
