Let’s Talk About D&D Character Creators
Do you prefer electronic character sheets or want the basics auto-filled? D&D character creators are one of the most helpful tools out there.
If you play D&D, you know that sometimes writing up and maintaining your character sheet can be a struggle. There’s a lot of information to keep on your sheet and a relatively small place to write it in… And that’s assuming your handwriting is small and neat. If it’s not, you don’t have a chance of getting all of the important information jotted down.
And then there’s the stuff that changes. An increased stat can change a whole line of skills. Not to mention changing spells, checking and unchecking inspiration and death save boxes, and of course the ever-changing hit points. If you’ve ever erased a hole right through your character sheet, you wouldn’t be the only one.
Character Creators
There are tools to help with that exact problem. Spell cards will let you constantly organize, chose, re-deck, and reference your spells. And there are trackers specially for things like spell slots, hit points, inspiration. You know, all of that good stuff. But in an electronic time when most people are at their computers or tablets for a good portion of the day and always have a phone in their pocket, electronic character creators are a no-brainer solution.
Need to be more organized? Electronic character creator. Have bad hand writing? That’s cool, type it all up on your character creator. Just don’t like the mundane task of writing everything out every time you level up? Most of these will auto-fill for you. I use a few different character creators myself depending on what I’m doing. And I’m not sure I’d go back to paper sheets again any time soon.
D&D Beyond
The gold standard in just about everything to do with electronically organizing your Dungeons and Dragons life, D&D Beyond has one of the best D&D character creators in the game. In fact, if you want to run an adventure online, D&D Beyond has just about everything you’ll need, from books to sheets. And as the official home of everything electronic D&D, you know they’ll be one of the first to have the new corebooks and character sheet layouts.
Everything is organized in an easy-to-read and easy to update one-glance page for your playing convenience with compatibility for computers or phones and tablet depending on your play style. Honestly, you know about D&D beyond by now and you know that it’s awesome. But just take a moment to appreciate again how pleasing that character sheet layout is to look at.
5E Companion App
I’m going to let you guys in on two secrets. One, yes I absolutely did make Shawn Spencer as a playable character for a one-shot. My husband played Gus. It was fantastic. And two, whenever I make my weekly character sheets they go through their first round of creation in the 5E Companion App. While not as streamlined or aesthetic, it’s a fantastic and very easy to use app that takes all of the information you want, does the math, and spits out almost everything you need. Plus, it’s easy to update, level up, and add campaign notes directly to your sheet.
They also have a surprising amount of options, including the Unearthed Arcana versions. I happen to enjoy the look of a classic paper character sheet, but if it’s time for a one-shot and I don’t want to waste the paper for one day or I want something to do basic work for me and save me a little time, the 5E Companion App is an incredibly handy little tool.
Fast Character
True to it’s name, this website let me make this hypothetical bard fast. As a D&D character creator it has a way more options than you expect when you first look at the relatively simple options page, and the dropdown menus go on for days. If you don’t have dice handy to roll for stats, they allow you to pick from a bunch of standard pre set stat collections starting at 15/14/13/12/10/8 and moving into less and less common but still very useable number combinations. There is of course an option to enter your own stats as well, but I like the ease which this character creator has been programmed with. Once you’re ready to see your creation come to life, Fast Character instantly draws up this nicely organized and very easy to read full color sheet.
Aurora Builder
Compared to some other D&D Character creators Aurora is a little dark and a little utilitarian looking. But it more than makes up for it in cold hard functionality. It’s organized to a fault, making every aspect of your sheet easy to find and edit, as well as including descriptions of everything you’ll be working on to make sure there’s no confusion. These user- and especially new user friendly- features make it a no mess, no fuss and beautifully useable character creator.
Roll20
If you play D&D online and you don’t use D&D Beyond, you probably use Roll20. In fact, this is what I used for my last online campaign. The character sheets always come together quickly and with surprisingly little effort. While other systems make character sheets that look close enough or similar (or sometimes even better and easier to read), D20 spits out an exact character sheet that you’re already used to looking at.
And then the whole thing makes gameplay very easy with maps and books and a pretty simple rolling system. We used this for a family game with my brothers and parents and on a mixture of computer, phone, and tablet and there were surprisingly few issues.
What’s your favorite D&D character creator? Do you prefer to see your character sheets electronically or on paper? What’s the weirdest character you threw together for a one-shot and did your party appreciate it more than mine did for Shawn and Gus? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
