When Dungeons and Dragons players discuss DnD builds, they’re talking about the rules (and math) that make their characters tick. This guide breaks down how the best DnD builds work, with advice on how and why to play them.
We’ll cover what DnD races pair best with the DnD classes. You’ll also find advice on rolling up your stats and choosing DnD feats. Some builds in this guide are optimized to take full advantage of Dungeons and Dragons’ rules, while others offer a less explosive but still consistent kind of fun.
These are the best DnD character builds:
- Half-elf Lore Bard
- Human Polearm Sentinel
- Goodberry Life Cleric
- Sharpshooter Crossbow Expert
- Sorlock
- Armored Wizard
- Bear-barian
Half-elf Lore Bard
A great all-rounder for beginner builders
Class:
- College of Lore Bard 5e (all levels)
Race:
Feats:
- Ability score improvement
- Resilient (Constitution)
Key spells:
- Vicious Mockery
- Tasha’s Hideous Laughter
- Dissonant Whispers
The Half-elf Lore Bard is a solid build with no surprises. It’s not going to win any awards for creativity, and won’t have you pushing the boundaries of D&D 5e norms. But if you want to play a character that’s equally adept in roleplay and combat, you can’t go far wrong with a classic Bard, trained in the College of Lore.
A Half-elf gets +2 Charisma, which feeds nicely into Bardic spellcasting. Spend your remaining two +1 increases on Constitution and Dexterity to keep you upright in combat.
Playing a Half-elf also lets you start with proficiency in two DnD skills. The Bard class gives you three extra proficiencies on top of that, plus the ability to add your proficiency bonus to these skill rolls thanks to Jack of All Trades. Once you choose College of Lore as your DnD Bard subclass at level three, you’ll get three more skill proficiencies to play with. Eight out of eighteen skill proficiencies isn’t too extravagant, but it’ll still give you huge amounts of utility.
Bards are better at control and support than they are at striking, so the majority of your DnD spells will reflect this. Sure, you can take some high-quality offensive spells once you get Magical Secrets, but before that, stick to what you know.
While we recommend maxing your Charisma score as fast as possible, we’d also advise that you pick up the Resilient feat. This will help you keep your concentration up, meaning you can dominate the battlefield for longer.
Human Polearm Sentinel
A simple martial build with surprising power
Class:
- Battlemaster Fighter 5e (all levels)
Race:
- Variant Human 5e
Feats:
- Polearm Master
- Sentinel
- Great Weapon Master
- Ability score improvement
For a build that specializes in straightforward melee damage, get yourself a Human Fighter with a whole bunch of feats. With this build, you’ll be able to crush any enemy you encounter; slapping them about from a distance, and dealing plenty of damage in a single turn.
Start with the highest possible Strength score, and give your Constitution a buff to boot. Your DnD weapon of choice should be a Glaive, as it has both the heavy and reach properties. Armor should, of course, be heavy. Additionally, take Great Weapon Fighting as your fighting style to give you a better chance of dealing serious damage.
Playing a Variant Human is essential, as it lets you choose a feat right out the gate. Start with Polearm Master so you can make bonus action attacks from level one and trigger plenty of DnD opportunity attacks. Combine this with the Sentinel feat at level four, which stops all creatures in their tracks when you successfully land an attack of opportunity, and your fighter can simultaneously cleave through enemies and immobilize them – a powerful combo.
Fighters get more feats than anyone, so we recommend taking another later on. Great Weapon Master gives you even more powerful bonus action attacks, and it gives you a +10 to damage in exchange for a -5 attack roll penalty. A minus may sound bad, but trust us – you’re still going to land more hits than you miss.
After this, keep buffing your key DnD stats. The result is a Fighter who can hit often and hit hard.
Goodberry Life Cleric
The best healing class gets even better
Class:
- Life Domain Cleric 5e (all levels)
Race:
- Variant Human
Feats:
- Magic Initiate
- Ability score improvement
Key spells:
- Goodberry
- Shillelagh
- Healing Word
Healers aren’t particularly overpowered in the world of D&D, as dealing lethal damage fast is often a better strategy than keeping everyone alive for longer. However, healers are still pretty great to have around – and if you do want to fill this niche, the Goodberry Life Cleric is one of the best builds for it.
Start with a Variant Human, buffing your Wisdom and Constitution. This gets you a free feat at level one, and you’ll be choosing Magic Initiate in order to gain access to the Druid spell list. Choose Goodberry as your free level-one Druid spell, as well as Shillelagh as one of your DnD cantrips. This gives you a way to make melee attacks with your Wisdom modifier (as long as you swap your mace for a quarterstaff), and it gives you a potent new healing option.
Let’s explain the Goodberry combo a little further. At level one, Life Clerics get the Disciple of Life feature. This means that, when your Cleric casts a healing spell, the target will receive extra hit points equal to two plus the spell’s level.
Goodberry lets you create ten berries, each of which heals a creature by one hit point when eaten. Disciple of Life increases that number to four hit points per berry, meaning you have 40 hit points to hand out instead of ten.
This build gives you a Cleric that can hold their own in combat well enough to stick around and heal everyone. You can achieve a similar result by taking one level in Druid and the rest in Cleric, and this is a viable option if you’d prefer to play a different race. However, we prefer not to multiclass unless we need to, so the Variant Human version does fine for us.
Sharpshooter Crossbow Expert
A ranged build with maximum agility and first-round damage
Class:
- Gloom Stalker Ranger 5e (5)
- Battlemaster Fighter (15)
Race:
- Variant Human
Feats:
- Sharpshooter
- Crossbow Expert
- Ability score increase
Key spells:
- Invisibility
- Pass Without Trace
- Hunter’s Mark
This build combines two feats and two classes, and the result is huge damage output for your first turn of combat. The damage you deal on your other turns isn’t too shabby, either.
Start by putting five levels into your DnD Gloom Stalker (and make sure you’re using the optional Ranger rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything). This gives you Dread Ambusher, which lets you make extra, stronger attacks on your first turn of combat. Reaching level five gives you a sweet Extra Attack.
After this, take at least three levels in Fighter. This gets you Action Surge (even more attacks) and access to Battlemaster, one of the most consistent DnD Fighter subclasses. Between your Extra Attack, Dread Ambusher, and Action Surge, you can attack six times on the first turn.
Then we add feats into the mix. Once again, Variant Human is the top choice of race here. Ideally, you’d start with the Crossbow Expert feat and access to a hand crossbow. This allows you to make an additional crossbow attack as a bonus action – taking your total up to seven attacks on your first turn.
If you can’t start the game with a crossbow, it’s worth taking the Sharpshooter feat instead and using a longbow until you can get the crossbow you need. We recommend spending the rest of your DnD level ups on the Fighter class for the extra feat opportunities.
There are many variations of this build that combine the Gloom Stalker’s Dread Ambusher with the Fighter’s Action Surge. You can experiment with the classes you take once you’ve got the core build online. For example, many people take three levels in Assassin Rogue 5e and focus on surprising foes. Or, you can take a leaf out of Tabletop Build’s book and multiclass into Cleric and Warlock.
Sorlock
Class:
- Divine Soul or Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 5e (18)
- Hexblade Warlock 5e (2)
Race:
- Half-elf
Feats:
- Ability score increase
- Elven Accuracy
Key spells:
- Eldritch Blast
Beloved by many, the Sorlock combines the high damage-dealing of Warlocks, with the innate spellcasting buffs of Sorcerers for immense damage output. Cha’s the spellcasting ability of both classes, so you can leverage their magical abilities simultaneously, and play them against one another for even greater effect.
The basic idea is to combine the Warlock’s Hex spell, which adds 1d6 necrotic damage to a creature when it’s attacked, with their Eldritch Blast 5e cantrip, dealing 1d10 force damage. Alongside that, use the Sorcerer’s Quicken Metamagic ability, letting you cast a spell for one bonus action. Eldritch Blast becomes a rapid fire, incendiary machine gun, as you deal consistently high damage, turn after turn. Even the Barbarian 5e in the party will be jealous.
Similarly, each class makes up for the other’s deficiencies. Warlocks have very limited spell slots, while Sorcerers have plenty; Sorcerers are usually left wanting after a short rest, but Warlocks recover all spell slots.
When building a Sorlock, your starting class doesn’t matter hugely, but Sorcerer makes the most sense for its proficiency in Constitution saving throws. As long as you’ve taken three levels in Sorcerer and two in Warlock by level five, you’re golden. Cha should be your primary ability score for maximum damage, followed by Con.
There are a huge number of possible Sorlock builds depending on which of the DnD Sorcerer subclasses you like best. We recommend going for Clockwork Soul or Divine Soul for pure power levels.
Armored Wizard
Class:
- Chronurgy Wizard 5e (19)
- Peace Cleric or Artificer 5e (1)
Race:
- Winged Tiefling 5e
Feats:
- War Caster
Key spells:
- Shield
- Magic Missile
- Silvery Barbs
- Web
- Fireball 5e
The Dungeons and Dragons Wizard is extremely powerful as is, without the need to multiclass or go overboard with feats. Their major Achilles’ Heel, though, is their lack of DnD armor. But a single dip into another class can fix that.
The Chronurgy Wizard is, in our opinion, the most powerful of the DnD Wizard subclasses, so go hard on that with your levels. However, make sure your first level is either in Artificer or Peace Cleric. The first gives you advantage on Constitution saving throws and access to Artificer spells, while the second gives you access to Cleric spells and Emboldening Bond.
This gives you proficiency in medium and light armor, as well as shields. Combine that with the War Caster feat to make sure you can still cast spells while you’re holding said DnD shield.
After that, pick the usual suspects for Wizard spells. Classics like Fireball give you ways to deal serious damage, but many would argue a Wizard is far more powerful when they focus on control. For example, check out Treantmonk’s guide to ‘god’ Wizards for a deep dive into this approach.
Bear-barian
Class:
- Path of the Totem Warrior Barbarian 5e (3)
- Circle of the Moon Druid 5e (17)
Race:
- Kalashtar
Feats:
- Ability score improvement
The concept of the Bear-barian is simple. Step one, combine Rage with DnD Wild Shape. Step two, damage.
Technically, you only need one level in the Barbarian class to achieve this goal. Many builds advise that you do only take a single dip, as every level in Barbarian makes you a slightly worse Druid. However, we like to take three levels and gain the Path of the Totem Warrior subclass. If you choose the Bear totem, you gain resistance to all damage except psychic while raging.
Combine this with the Kalashtar race, who are telepathic and resistant to psychic damage, and you’ve got an unstoppable bear who can still speak to their pals while in Wild Shape. If your DM isn’t cool with a Kalashtar character (they are only meant to be found in Eberron), then we’d build a Variant Human with the Telepathic feat instead.
The Moon Druid is the best for doing battle while still in Wild Shape, so go all in on this once you’ve set up your Rage combo. And don’t forget to go all in on the Bear theme.
Looking to get creative in Dungeons and Dragons? Expand your rules horizons with our guide to all things DnD homebrew. We can also keep you up-to-date with the newest DnD books with the current DnD release schedule. Be sure to check back in after the One DnD rulebooks release – our top builds might look very different with the new Player’s Handbook.