These are D&D terms that can be found in the index of the Player’s Handbook to easily learn more about them. Throughout this guide, some words are bolded. If you printed out the character sheet and/or rules, you might also want a pencil as we go through this sheet to make notes. For now, let’s stick to an official sheet for continuity. Or, you might have seen a printout from D&D Beyond, a popular and easy-to-use character creation tool. Lots of community creators have made beautiful and unique D&D character sheets.
You can find a blank character sheet on of this PDF if you’d like to view that, tooĪs a quick note, if you have some experience with reading a D&D character sheet and it doesn’t look like the one above, it might come from a different source.
Again, if you don’t have it, download the Basic Rules now. The Basic Rules will give you what you need to start out (and to read this post), but you’ll want the Player’s Handbook after more than one or two games.
It’s probably the most important $30 you will ever spend for D&D. One other D&D investment I strongly recommend is a copy of the Player’s Handbook. You can print this out if you’d like or view it on your device.
I highly recommend it.) For the purpose of reading this now, go ahead and find the Wizard character sheet on of their free document. (If you want to invest a little into your gameplay, this really gets you a good bang for your buck.
For this guide, we will use one of the character sheets from the D&D Starter Set. Other websites offer free and low-cost tools to help you play, too.įirst, let’s start off with the character sheet itself. Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns and publishes Dungeons and Dragons, has great free resources for you. Great news! You can learn to read a D&D character sheet for $0. What You Need to Read a D&D Character Sheet Then, get ready for this complete guide to reading a D&D character sheet. Make sure you have the materials outlined in the next section. Soon, though, you will see how everything connects and you’ll find a flow to it. Reading a D&D character sheet can feel like a lot, and that’s true at first. But if you only learn one thing before playing a game, make it reading a D&D character sheet. It can feel like a lot to start playing Dungeons and Dragons, but you need surprisingly little knowledge to start. Learn more.ĭungeons and Dragons is an awesome roleplaying game of fantasy, filled with imagination and lucky dice rolls. If you purchase something through this page, Cats and Dice may earn a share of sales from the link.
Search and Display everything using full text search.Īdd more classes, races, and everything else.Hey there! This website does contain affiliate links. The In Play Screen gives you all your needed information at once. Manage your inventory and customize items Select Race, Class(es), Ability Scores, Background and set Personal Info The main part of the program, allows you to build characters and export them as PDF. The program recreates the final character on every change using those saved choices.Ĭhoices that are no longer needed will be saved for the future, thus allowing you to create a character up to level 20 and then put it back to level 1, with the choices coming back as you level up normally. The Features in the Data Files can also create more choices (spells, equipment, fighting styles, metamagic.) which are saved in the character file as well. The second part is the character file, which is a catalogue of choices made during creation.Ĭhoices like abilities, class(es), race, background, name, picture, backstory, inventory are always logged. Most of these Data Files are a collections of features that give the character ability score increases, proficiencies, spellcasting systems, and many more things. Each Source Book is its own folder in the programs directory. There are 2 parts to a character in this builder: First the Data Files, that define what classes, subclasses, races, subraces, features, backgrounds.
Latest version (including SRD 5.1) for Windows can be found under Releases.
The App versions are currently being worked on. The main version is for Windows, but there are versions for Android, iOS and UWP as well (using Xamarin). The Builder is designed to be extendable with your own content (as I am not allowed to put in all the books),įast (Only make choices you need to make), and to be both used as a play aid or PDF creator.