To play Dungeons & Dragons, you'll need to create a character to take on adventures that your Dungeon Master will run. Even before choosing your class, you'll select a race for your character.
Fifth-edition D&D contains a wide variety of ancestries to choose from, and each one offers different features that make your character unique. If you are new to the game, the best place to start reading about the game's races is in the free basic rules or the Player’s Handbook (if you want slightly more options). As you grow more familiar with the game, you can look to other books for additional character creation options. For example, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything adds rules for customizing your race. For the sake of this tutorial, we'll cover just the racial options in the Player's Handbook.
Select a race to learn about it |
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Dragonborn | Halfling |
Dwarf | Half-orc |
Elf | Human |
Gnome | Tiefling |
Half-elf |
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Dragonborn
Dragonborn are descendants of mighty dragons and are typically depicted as strong martial heroes who deeply value their clans. They are reptilian-like and get a breath weapon based on the type of dragon their lineage is tied to. Want to breath fire on your enemies? Then you might want to play a dragonborn whose bloodline comes from red dragons!
Great reasons to play a dragonborn:
- You get to be a quasi-dragon. Sure, you don’t have wings, but you’re still draconic!
- Dragonborn have breath weapons. Depending on your draconic ancestry, you can choose from a wide variety of breath types, ranging from the traditional fire breath of red dragons to the poison breath of green dragons. Your breath deals 2d6 damage on a failed save (the DC is 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus), half as much on a successful save, and slowly scales as you level up.
- Dragonborn are resistant to the damage type associated with their ancestry. So, if you breathe fire, you’re resistant to fire damage.
Dragonborn players should keep in mind:
- Dragonborn don’t have darkvision, which regular dragons and most other races in the Player’s Handbook possess.
- The dragonborn’s breath weapon uses up an entire Action and can only be used once per short or long rest. Some players argue that its damage output is weak, especially when foes make their saving throws.
Dwarf
Dwarves in D&D possess a knack for mining and a love for their clans and kingdoms, which stretch far into the earth. All dwarves are great for martial classes, though dwarven spellcasters are also common. The subraces in the Player’s Handbook include the hill dwarf and the mountain dwarf. Hill dwarves boast a higher Wisdom score and hit points. Mountain dwarves benefit from greater Strength.
Great reasons to play a dwarf:
- Dwarves can take a lot of damage. Their Constitution score increases by 2, and Dwarven Resilience gives them advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance to poison damage. The Dwarven Toughness trait of hill dwarves also imparts a hit point maximum increase of 1 with every level.
- Dwarves start with many weapon proficiencies that other races lack, including hard-hitting armaments like the battleaxe and warhammer. Even a dwarven wizard who is out of spell slots won’t be rendered helpless as long as a good hammer is nearby.
- If you’re setting out on a dungeon crawl campaign like Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage or an underground adventure like Out of the Abyss, a dwarf is a handy choice thanks to their darkvision and their Stonecunning trait, which lets them discern the origins of stonework.
Dwarf players should keep in mind:
- While dwarves make good druids, clerics, and wizards, if you want to play a warlock or sorcerer, keep in mind that dwarves don’t get a bonus to Charisma, which is important for those classes.
- With a speed of 25 feet and an emphasis on Strength and Constitution rather than Dexterity, dwarves are less nimble than other races.
Elf
Elves are D&D’s longest lived race. Most elves possess an ethereal beauty reminiscent of the Feywild, as well as the potential to excel in both martial and magical pursuits.
There are three elven subraces in the Player’s Handbook: high elves, who specialize in magic; wood elves, who have a deep relationship with nature; and the drow, subterranean dwellers who have adapted to a world without light.
Great reasons to play an elf:
- Elves live for a really long time. An elf only reaches adulthood at 100 and lives until 750. Unless you’re playing a geriatric elf, this longevity means that certain monster effects which cause aging — like the ghost’s Horrifying Visage — are relatively harmless to an elf.
- Elves don’t need to sleep. They can benefit from a long rest from a mere 4 hours of meditation. This means you can spend more time at night keeping watch for enemies or doing other tasks.
- Two of the three elven subraces start with free magic. High elves can choose a wizard cantrip of their choice, while drow begin with the dancing lights cantrip and learn faerie fire and darkness as they level up.
Elf players should keep in mind:
- If you’re playing a drow, be aware of Sunlight Sensitivity, which causes disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks in direct sunlight. The subrace’s long-standing status as “evil elves,” epitomized by the harsh culture of the drow city Menzoberranzan, is also something to be wary of, though the heroic Drizzt Do’Urden proves that noble drow are present and plentiful in the world.
- Like dwarves, elves are perhaps the most traditional of D&D’s races. Those used to the typical depiction of the aloof, distant elf who won’t interfere with the problems of the world might find these pointy-earned individuals boring. But the power is within your hands to create a unique character that defies all tropes.
Gnome
Gnomes are tinkerers, inventors, and lovers of life. They relish in making the most of their years, and out of all of the races in the Player’s Handbook, gnomes arguably possess the most infectious humor and fascination for the world.
Gnomes have two subraces. Forest gnomes dwell in woodland areas and befriend animals. Rock gnomes are inventive and expert crafters.
Great reasons to play a gnome:
- Gnomes have a number of solid traits right off the bat. They’re the second longest-lived race in the Player’s Handbook and have darkvision and Gnome Cunning, which grants advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic.
- Forest gnomes gain minor illusion as a free cantrip, a Dexterity score increase of 1, and the ability to speak with Small animals. These are all great traits for a ranger who dashes in and out of the woods or a druid who likes to commune with nature.
- Rock gnomes can construct several devices, including a clockwork toy, a fire starter, and a music box. These can serve as both flavorful roleplaying aids as well as handy tools for distracting enemies in the middle of a stealthy adventure!
Gnome players should keep in mind:
- Like dwarves and halflings, the gnome life means that you have to deal with a slow movement speed of 25 feet.
- Gnomes receive an Intelligence boost of 2, which is wonderful for wizards but less so for most other classes.
Half-Elf
Half-elves are one side of the “stuck between two races” fantasy trope. (Half-orcs are the other.) Half-elves are often not entirely accepted by humans nor their elvish brethren, but some manage to effortlessly exist within both worlds like the cultural chameleons they are. Importantly, this race is a good fit for most classes thanks to traits that reflect their human and elvish halves.
Great reasons to play a half-elf:
- Half-elves get the flexibility of humans alongside the Fey Ancestry and inherent darkvision of elves. This means they can’t be charmed or put to sleep by magic, have the ability to see in the dark, and start with proficiency in any two skills of their choice.
- Half-elves have great versatility thanks to their Ability Score Increase feature. They get a Charisma score increase of 2 — making them a fine fit for Charisma-based classes like bards and warlocks — and they can increase any two other ability scores of their choice by 1.
Half-elf players should keep in mind:
- Unless you're playing a spellcaster who relies on Charisma or want a character who is good in social encounters, the Charisma bonus could go to waste.
Halfling
Halflings are gentle folk right out of The Hobbit who enjoy the pleasures of home. Halflings who do take to the road tend to be defenders of their communities or have wanderlust.
If you’ve ever dreamed of playing as Bilbo or Frodo Baggins, or perhaps want to roleplay a Small character who seeks to defy expectations in a big world, halflings are the race for you. There are two halfling subraces in the Player’s Handbook. One is geared more toward stealth, and the other is geared more toward hardiness.
Great reasons to play a halfling:
- Halflings can avoid catastrophic rolls thanks to their Lucky trait, which lets them reroll a 1 on the d20 for an attack, ability check, or saving throw.
- Halflings have advantage on saving throws against being frightened. Also, if you choose the stout halfling subrace, you’ll have advantage on saving throws against poison, and resistance to poison damage as well.
- Lightfoot halflings make great rogues thanks to their Naturally Stealthy ability, which lets them hide if they’re obscured by a creature one size larger. Combine this with the Halfling Nimbleness trait, which lets halflings move through any larger creature's space, and you’ve got an amazing little acrobat who can tumble all over the battlefield.
Halfling players should keep in mind:
- Like dwarves and gnomes, halflings’ small legs mean that they only have a walking speed of 25 feet. This lower speed will be noticeable if you're playing a melee character and need to close the gap on enemies.
Half-Orc
Half-orcs are the other side of the “stuck between two races” trope. Unlike elves, however, orcs have traditionally been painted as villains in D&D. More nuanced portrayals are present in fifth edition, but many half-orcs still carry a chip on their shoulder due to the way society treats their orcish side. For those who want to play as a martial powerhouse or delve into a character navigating a complex relationship with their heritage, half-orcs are the way to go.
Great reasons to play a half-orc:
- Half-orcs are supremely hardy, and Relentless Endurance is one of their best traits. Once per long rest, if a half-orc falls to 0 hit points and isn’t killed outright, they can instead drop to 1 hit point. This ability can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
- Savage Attacks is another excellent trait that lets half-orcs roll a weapon damage dice an additional time and add it to the extra damage of a critical hit.
Half-orc players should keep in mind:
- Half-orcs in D&D are limited to human/orc hybrids, just like half-elves. Previous editions of D&D also hinted that many half-orcs were the result of unwilling unions — a disturbing lore choice that has largely been retconned these days.
- The Player’s Handbook says that half-orcs grapple with evil tendencies thanks to the lingering influence of Gruumsh, the god who created orcs. Players interested in half-orcs should be wary of this stereotype, and only engage with it if they want to.
- New players might wonder why full-blooded orcs aren’t listed as a race in the Player’s Handbook, since both elves and half-elves are present. The simple answer is that orcs have traditionally been the “bad guys,” and if you want to play one, you’ll need Volo’s Guide to Monsters or Eberron: Rising from the Last War.
Human
Humans are the most populous and self-explanatory race in D&D. Their brief lifespans in comparison to longer-lived races means that humans are often the movers and shakers who propel dramatic world events forward.
Humans might seem dull, but if you’re playing in a game where the Dungeon Master allows you to play a variant human, the ability to take a feat at 1st level is staggeringly good. Also, sometimes the best way to stand out in an adventuring group filled with all sorts of colorful creatures is to choose the seemingly “mundane” option!
Great reasons to play a human:
- Humans have solid stats across the board, with their ability scores each increasing by 1.
- Variant humans can forgo increasing each of their ability scores by 1 in favor of increasing only two scores by 1, and gaining one skill proficiency and a feat.
- The diversity of humans is unsurpassed, and their ability to fit into any D&D world makes them the most flexible race from a backstory-formulating perspective.
Human players should keep in mind:
- Humans don’t have any of the special traits that other races have. No magical breath, no innate magic, no long life, and no darkvision. In other words — they’re vanilla, especially in a game where variant humans aren’t allowed.
Tiefling
Tieflings are individuals with the blood of devils flowing in their veins, often due to pacts crafted between their ancestors and various denizens of the Nine Hells.
Typically boasting horns and tails that reveal their devilish origins, tieflings in many D&D worlds have to deal with the same troubles as half-orcs. Nevertheless, these children of Asmodeus are highly charismatic folk who usually manage to outwit others through charm or trickery.
Great reasons to play a tiefling:
- Thanks to their infernal bloodline, all tieflings have resistance to fire damage as well as darkvision — not to mention nifty horns and a tail!
- Tieflings get an Intelligence score increase of 1 and a Charisma score increase of 2, making them excellent spellcasters. The tiefling warlock or sorcerer is a common combination, as is the tiefling bard or wizard.
- Tieflings have an innate command of certain magics, beginning with the useful thaumaturgy cantrip. At 3rd level, they can cast hellish rebuke as a 2nd level spell, and at 5th level, they can cast darkness. Both spells can only be used once per long rest, but are excellent freebies.
Tiefling players should keep in mind:
- Although the Charisma and Intelligence bonus is handy for a lot of classes, the lack of a bonus to Constitution or Dexterity means that you're liable to be less hardy and less dexterous than other characters in the party.
- As with drow and half-orcs, tieflings might garner a certain amount of distrust in traditional D&D settings, and the Player’s Handbook states that many become bitter due to this prejudice and turn villainous. As always, remember that your tiefling character is whoever you want them to be — not what lore dictates.
Let's make a character
Once you've selected a race for your character, it's time to start thinking about their class. Will your human character be a fighter who has risen the ranks of the city guard? Will your elf be a druid who worships nature and protects it from wrongdoers? Check out the classes in the basic rules or in the Player's Handbook (for more options) to start learning about them.
If you'd like more direction for creating a character, here's a video on how to quickly make one using D&D Beyond. Below that, you'll see additional tutorial articles.
Jeremy Blum (@PixelGrotto) is a journalist, gaming blogger, comic book aficionado, and fan of all forms of storytelling who rolled his first polyhedral dice while living in Hong Kong in 2017. Since then, he's never looked back and loves roleplaying games for the chance to tell the tales that have been swirling in his head since childhood.
Great breakdown. I do still think it's necessary to have traditionally evil orcs, because it makes orc and half-orc adventurers more interesting. I will say that the half-orc racial traits are probably pretty good to make a regular orc. Personally, in my game, because 1st edition states that orcs can breed with pretty much anything, I like to think that half-orcs can represent orc-dwarves, orc-goblins, etc. The original 1E Monster Manual said that almost all half-orcs are essentially orcs.
when is this trait useful? I am not being sarcastic, I would honestly like to know when this has been useful to you. also great article.
It's really only good for keeping watch, unless your party is all elves
There are some specific situations this may be useful on top of keeping watch - for example I play a high elf pact of chain warlock so I often need to summon my familiar and because I certainly do not want to waste one of my few spell slots for that, I cast it always as a ritual. However, that takes an hour which you often cannot spend. A long rest is ideal for that because all other non-elf party members will rest for 8 hours and by then, you are rested, have summoned a familiar and possibly done other tasks. Cook them some brekky!
Yep, I just use the half-orc stats for orc characters. In my world, orcs aren’t necessarily evil, but they are brutal and isolationist, and have a dark history. It’s a good compromise that keeps the orcish identity while not going full Tolkien ripoff. (Drow are the truly evil culture in my world: while one or two good drow might exist, I play most of them as exaggerated Nazis.)
In an Icewind Dale adventure, needed to get somewhere fast but the Elf (not a ranger) got fatigued due to bad weather. Took a 4 hour long rest while the storm blew over, then continued on safely. Still arrived in the "under 24 hours" that was needed.
Elf wizard needed to cast find familiar to switch to a bat. Spent an hour casting find familiar while the rest of the party continued to rest and we were still ready in 8 hours to enter the vampire's castle at dawn.
You need to check out "Downtime Activities" then (I linked the XGE page but there's also a smaller list in the DMG). I love playing elves cause that gives me 4ish hours of time to work on making scrolls or making magic items or just working to make more gold with any kind of crafting or reading books to research where ever we're going or whatever we're trying to kill. 4+ hours everyday to **** around and do whatever I want well everyone else sleeps is amazing.
Plus I can't count the number of times we've been attacked or had to cut a long rest short cause reasons and the elves are good to go cause they only needed 4 hours not 8 which is so great since they're usually spell casters.
It means you can keep watch more, therefore avoiding potentially deadly encounters.
This is partially misleading. Elves still need the full 8 hrs to gain the benefits of a long rest. They just need less time during the long rest to "sleep". In fact, there is no requirement to sleep during a long rest. Reference: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015
The impression I got was that it just meant you'd get ambushed whilst you're trancing.
But maybe that's just me?!
Sorry I've had been playing the wood elf Cleric for the record.
That is the first I've heard of that and honestly makes zero sense as that says you can't even stand watch for more then 2 hours which is the same for any other race. So it is a racial feature that is "not to give them an edge in the game." which is exactly what every other racial features do. I can't even think of another purely thematic racial feature. It would be like saying that Halflings are short and can't move as fast as their longer legged companions, but then still having their base movement speed being 30... Dumb as **** imo and I will never follow that RAW.
An Elf (or Warforged) PC that has to prepare spells each day, such as an Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, or Wizard can swap out their prepared spells in half the time as other characters. So even if the whole party doesn’t really need the rest, if that PC can swap spells quickly and join back up with them they can have what the party needs. (It’s especially useful for Artificers who can also swap their infusions at the same time. Even more so for Alchemists to restock on Elixirs.)
That was an old ruling from 2015, Crawford has since reversed that decision:
There are a number of mostly thematic features and traits, they are generally referred to as “ribbon abilities,” since they put a pretty ribbon on it but don’t actually do much.
That's a great point, I hadn't thought of doing downtime during the party's rest, that's very creative.
Ya I was just gonna post about Crawford backpeddling on that ruling as well. However, name 5 other purely thematic racial feature. Cause there are a couple that are less useful unless the DM gives you the opportunity to use it (Dwarven Stonecunning comes to mind) but I can't think of or find another purely RP flavor racial feature.
Edit: Ok, I found one that I would argue is pretty much pure RP. Lizardfolk's Cunning Artisan feature is pretty much just flavor text as anyone skilled in the right artisan tools should be able to do the same (though this technically would negate the need for any skill requirements in tools for this specific purpose and is much faster) and doesn't give you any benefit to those created items (crafters would be able to use dragon materials to make magic items but this skill would just make mundane) as well as being very limited on what you can make.
I was not aware of the updated ruling. Thank you!
What about cats? Sigh. Everyone overlooks the Tabaxi.
This is an interesting article. I'm not a new player, but this seems like it would be really useful for one!
This is just listing the basic races you can get without buying on D&D beyond. Also, tabaxi have some more specialized/confusing traits that would be hard for a new player.
Let's see....
Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, Dragonborn, and some more dragonbons, their the best.
"Dragonborn have breath weapons. Depending on your draconic ancestry, you can choose from a wide variety of breath types, ranging from the traditional fire breath of red dragons to the poison breath of green dragons. Your breath deals 2d6 damage on a failed save (the DC is 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus), half as much on a successful save, and slowly scales as you level up."
Heh, what gives? No love for Gem Dragonborns? We don't have breath weapons!