If you're new to Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), learning about the various classes, races, and spells can be an exciting dive into tabletop roleplaying games. But D&D has its fair share of terms. Here is a comprehensive list of many of the common terms you'll run into while playing the game.

To search for a specific term, hit CTRL + F or CMD + F on your keyword.

General terms

d20: In D&D, we refer to our different dice by the letter d, followed by the number of sides on the die. A d20, for example, is a 20-sided die. A d20 is the most commonly used die you'll use while playing the game. In a typical dice set, you are given seven dice: a d20, a d12, a d8, a d6, a d4, and 2d10 (one with single digits and one with tens digits).

Dungeon Master (DM): The DM runs the game for players. They are responsible for playing non-player characters (NPCs), establishing the environment, calling for specific ability checks, and being the arbiter for rules at the table.

Player character (PC): This refers to a character that is controlled by the player.

Non-player character (NPC): This is a character who is controlled by the DM. They interact with the player characters, whether as a friend or foe. 

Party: The adventuring group of player characters is known as a party. A group of players can also be referred to as a party.

Roleplaying: The main way of engaging in D&D. Each player will take the role of a character that they have created, and the Dungeon Master will take the role of the non-player characters that they interact with.

Campaign: A long running series of games where a group of players play D&D with the same characters in the same world. A campaign can last months or years to complete.

One shot: A short adventure that typically takes either one game session or a small handful of sessions. They can be great if you want to play D&D without committing to a campaign.

Your character sheet

Character sheet: Your character sheet contains numerous stats about your player character and how to apply those stats to the dice you are rolling. Many of these stats are determined by the rules presented in the Player’s Handbook. However, if manually calculating all of these numbers sounds tedious, D&D Beyond’s character builder and sheets will handle all of the tedious math for you.

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Race: The species you choose to play as. Common races include: human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, tiefling, dragonborn, and more. Your race not only gives you a basis for your character’s background and roleplaying, each race also gives you unique traits and abilities that are specific to them.

Class: This is your chosen character role when you play a game. Your class provides you with various combat and non-combat features that determine how you can influence the world you are playing in.

Level: Player character levels increase as they progress through a campaign, and can range from 1 to 20. The higher the level, the stronger your character. For an example of how a player character's power increases with level, check out the fighter's leveling table found in the free Basic Rules.

Experience points (XP): A numerical value that indicates a player character’s progress toward the next level.

Milestone leveling: Instead of calculating XP, player characters level up when they hit specific plot points or other checkpoints determined by the Dungeon Master.

The numbers that matter most

Hit points (hp): A numerical value that represents how much damage a character can take before falling unconscious. Your hit point maximum increases as you gain levels.

Hit Dice: The die you roll to increase your hit point maximum when you level up. You also have a number of hit dice equal to your level that you can expend to regain hit points during a short rest.

Ability scores: These represent a character's abilities, such as how strong or smart they are. Ability scores generally range from 8 to 20 for most player characters and include Strength (STR), Constitution (CON), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT), Wisdom (WIS), and Charisma(CHA).

• Strength: How strong your character is.
• Constitution: How healthy your character is.
• Dexterity: How quick and nimble your character is.
• Intelligence: How smart your character is. Think book smarts and your character’s ability to analyze information.
• Wisdom: How wise a character is. Think intuition, common sense, being aware of your surroundings, and having strong willpower.
• Charisma: How socially adept or strong of personality your character is.

Ability modifier: Using the numbers from your ability score, you can come up with an ability modifier. This number determines how a given ability score affect various dice rolls, hit points, and Armor Class. See modifiers in this table from the basic rules.

Applying your abilities

Armor Class (AC): Armor Class is a number that determines how difficult a character is to hit with an attack. To hit a character, the attack roll + modifiers must equal or exceed the target’s AC. Class features, spells, and wearing different armor can affect your player character's AC.

Saving throws: Determined by ability scores, these affect how well a character can avoid detrimental effects related to a given ability score. For example, if you need to avoid a fiery explosion, you might be asked to make a Dexterity saving throw.

Skills: These represent actions you might take in the game. When you want to climb a tree or recall historical information, you might need to roll a die to determine how well your player character is able to accomplish the task. The game has a variety of skills, from Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics) to Charisma (Persuasion) and Wisdom (Animal Handling).

Proficiency: A character can be better in some skills than others. This is known as proficiency. If a character is proficient in a skill, a proficiency bonus is added whenever you make an ability check using that skill. Proficiency bonuses start at +2 and increases by 1 at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level.

Passive Perception: Characters can also passively perform certain skills, the most common being Wisdom (Perception). This essentially measures how aware a player character is of their surroundings at any given time.

Spellcasting

Spell level: Spells have different levels of power in D&D, determined by a spell level. This ranges from spell levels 0 to 9. 

Cantrip: Level 0 spells. These are spells that are second nature to a spellcaster, and can be cast any number of times. These are the most basic level spells.

Spell slot: Spells that are not cantrips require spellcasters to tap a limited resource known as spell slots. A 1st-level spell requires a spellcaster to expend a 1st-level or higher spell slot. A 3rd-level spell requires them to expend a 3rd-level or higher spell slot. If the player character doesn't have a spell slot to cast a particular spell, then they can't cast it. Spell slots are recovered after a short or long rest depending on your class.

Spell save Difficulty Class (Spell save DC): Sometimes shortened to spell DC. Your player character's spell save DC determines how hard it is to resist or dodge your spells. If your spell save DC is 14, for example, targets you cast spells on will need to roll a saving throw equal to 14 or higher (including bonuses) to resist or dodge your spell. Although many spells will have no effect when an enemy succeeds against your spell save DC, some spells will deal half damage or have other effects even when saved against.

Exploration

Ability check: When you're climbing a rope, trying to recall historical information, or complete some other task that has consequences, your Dungeon Master might ask for an ability check. This involves rolling a d20 and then adding the appropriate ability modifier and proficiency bonus (if applicable). If your total equals or exceeds the Difficulty Class (DC) set by the Dungeon Master, then you succeed at whatever you were doing! Learn more about ability checks here.

Advantage, disadvantage: If you have advantage on a roll, it means you roll two d20 and take the higher number. Disadvantage is the opposite: you roll two d20s and take the lower number.

Gold: This is a common currency in the world of D&D. There is also copper, silver, and platinum. Converting currencies is easy. 10 copper is 1 silver; 10 silver is 1 gold; and 10 gold is 1 platinum. There is also electrum, the 50 cent coin to gold’s dollar, but it is rarely used.

Long rest: A full night’s rest. Going to sleep. This fully restores your characters hit points and spell slots, among other benefits.

Short rest: Resting for about an hour to recuperate. A short rest allows player characters to recover hit points by expending Hit Dice.

“Roll for Initiative”: The telltale sign that combat has begun.

Combat

Critical hit (Natural 20): When attacking enemies, you'll roll a d20 to help determine if you hit with an attack. If you roll a 20 on a d20, that is a critical hit, which deals extra damage.

Initiative: A number that determines the turn order of combat. Initiative is determined by rolling a d20 and adding your player character’s initiative bonus (typically just your Dexterity modifier). Turns proceed from highest to lowest initiative.

Round: A round in D&D lasts for six in-game seconds. In a single round, each player character and monster will have taken one turn to act.

Turn: A turn consists of an Action, a bonus action, and/or movement. A turn ends when the acting character cannot do anything more or they simply choose to end their turn.

Movement speed: How far a player character or monster can move is determined by their movement speed. Most player characters will have a walking speed of 25 or 30 feet.

Action: This is the main event of your turn. Common Actions include Attack, casting a spell, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, and Ready. Learn more about Actions here.

Bonus action: An extra action that can be performed in a turn. Learn more about bonus actions here.

Reaction: Player characters have one reaction they can perform outside of their turn before their turn comes around again. Reactions are most often used on opportunity attacks. Character-specific abilities, such as a monk’s Deflect Missiles or the spell Counterspell also use a reaction.

Opportunity attack: A reaction that is used against a creature attempting to leave melee range.

Conditions: Some attacks, spells, or monster features can have a debilitating effect on others . There are over a dozen conditions, including poisoned, grappled, and stunned. 

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Bryce Miller-Booker (@BMillerBooker) is English Language Arts graduate from San Diego State University. He is a writer with a love of all things geek, including video games, anime, trading card games, esports, and books. He has a particular interest in social geek events such as local competitions for the various trading card or video games he is playing as well as tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons. The greatest loves in his life are good food and his pet dog and partner in crime, Zero.