D&D: What’s In A Party? Here’s What The Data Says
Ever wonder how your party stacks up against the rest? D&D Beyond’s latest data takes us inside what’s in your D&D Party.
A couple of weeks ago we took a look at what a typical D&D party might look like, at least according to what the most popular classes are by individual. But a party is not just a collection of individuals–its a collection of heroes all working to an individual goal. And according to the latest data from D&D Beyond, each collection has one combination in particular that repeats itself across every party, large and small.
You can watch the whole video, but here are the highlights–this data comes from all current campaigns (on D&D Beyond) and accounts for characters not assigned to DMs, to try and catch what the current ‘in use’ players are. It’s not a perfect system, but again, it can give you a pretty good sense of what’s out there. And what’s out there is one combination of classes that feels a little unlikely:
Fighter, Cleric, Ranger.
Whatever it is about this combination seems to bear it out. It tends to be the most popular among parties of three and four characters, especially–since as you go up in players, there tends to be room for more weird experimentation, as you’ll see. But for now, let’s take a look at parties of three and four.
Clerics seem to be hanging out in just about every party, no matter what, or if not Clerics, Paladins. You don’t see many Bards in this area–which is unusual because their versatility would help fill in the gaps–though I do want to play in a party that consists of Fighter, Paladin, Ranger. As we get to parties of Five and Six you start to see more. The Bard steps onto the scene as a popular ‘5th party member’ as do Barbarians and Warlocks.
When we get to those poor souls in parties of seven, the party composition gets a little more varied, and you start to see much more repetition than in the other lists.
Parties of Eight might have something wrong with the data–but Barbarian x3, Bard x2, Fighter, Monk, and Rogue is my new favorite party of all time.
And that’s what you folks are playing.
What does your party look like? Let us know in the comments–and as always, Happy Adventuring!
