Old school Dungeons & Dragons called for endless sheets of paper covered in your characters’ stats, abilities, inventories, and special features. Nowadays, you don’t need to remember to bring an enormous notebook to every session because there are online character builders. You can store all of your characters’ information in a handy app or a website that you can quickly access and edit.
New players who need some extra guidance building their first characters often find these websites helpful since they break down all of the numbers behind the mechanics of DnD. However, even experienced players can use them to remember all of their class features. Can’t remember how much damage Rage adds to your Barbarian attacks? Your character sheet will automatically tell you.
Online character sheets also have the added bonus of providing dice and adding up your rolls if you or another player don’t enjoy doing math during a stressful combat scenario. Just click on the attack or ability, and the website rolls for you. This can be very helpful for high-level spells with tons of dice involved.
There are a few aspects to consider when selecting your online character builder. For example, some builders only allow you to create a character at first level. This type of website or app may ask you to sign up for a paid subscription or purchase access to higher-level characters, custom options, or the ability to multiclass.
With these things in mind, here are the best DnD 5E online character builders and creators.
DnD Beyond
Pros: Multiclassing available, builds characters levels 1-20, offers exportable sheets, gives you a character sheet, and has custom options
Cons: Only some options are available for free, no randomization
DnD Beyond is the officially supported online character builder by Wizards of the Coast, creators of D&D. For that reason, DnD Beyond has strict rules in place about the type of content they can offer for free. If you want access to spells, items, or subclasses from supplemental books (aka not the Core Rules), you’ll need to purchase those options.
However, if that doesn’t bother you, DnD Beyond has a fantastic character creator. They have a standard mode and a guidance mode for beginners, as well as a wealth of customizations and custom options created by the community. Dnd Beyond makes it easy to create your own custom content and share it with other people in your campaign or with the broader community.
Fast Character Builder
Pros: Builds characters levels 1-20, gives you a character sheet, and has a randomizer
Cons: No multiclass, no exportable character sheets, no custom options
If you’re joining a one-shot or are a DM who needs a character generated on the double, this is the website for you. You can select options or randomize your character completely and work with what the site generates. Random generation is great when balancing multiple characters in combat and switching back and forth between their abilities.
The downsides are that the website can’t support all of the class options or multiclassing. Since its primary purpose is to generate a character randomly, multiclassing options would make that random generation too complex and result in bizarre characters. However, this is often less of an issue for DMs looking for fast and easy NPCs to populate their worlds.
Dungeon Master’s Vault
Pros: Multiclassing available, builds characters levels 1-20, offers exportable sheets, offers a randomizer, and has custom options
Cons: No sheet or stat blocks
Dungeon Master’s Vault has a few aspects that make it stand out from the crowd. For one thing, it is linked with Roll20 (discussed in more depth below), so if your group is playing your campaign in Roll20, but you don’t like their character creator, you can use Dungeon Master’s Vault, and it will port your character to Roll20.
Another fun aspect is that as you build your character on Dungeon Master’s Vault, you can see the changes on your character sheet in real-time. Suppose you enjoy optimizing characters or want to make something specific. In that case, this feature can save you a lot of time and hassle by immediately demonstrating how your choices affect your overall build.
Roll20
Pros: Multiclassing available, builds characters levels 1-20, gives you a character sheet, and has custom options
Cons: Not exportable, no randomization, need to be part of a campaign for access.
Roll20 is a very popular website for character builders and for hosting campaigns. To use the character builder, you must begin or join a campaign through Roll20. When your group doesn’t have sessions in person, Roll20 is a great platform to lay out customized maps, provide tokens for players, and allow players to create their characters, all in one website.
You have plenty of options, both official and custom, to design your character from the ground up. Their character creator supports multiclassing and levels 1-20. While they don’t allow you to export your character sheet, this is often not a big deal since many people who use it play their entire campaign through Roll20.
5e Companion App
Pros: Multiclassing available, builds characters levels 1-20, gives you a character sheet, offers a randomizer, and has custom options
Cons: Not exportable, a little confusing for beginners
If you always want to be able to access everything from your phone, 5e Companion App is one of your best choices. While DnD Beyond does offer an app, you can’t make modifications through the app; just see your abilities. With 5e Companion, you can do everything from your phone.
The app is in-depth, which can make it somewhat confusing for newbies, but once you get the hang of it, 5e Companion offers everything you need to take your character through their journey. You can also use the app to quickly lookup spells, monsters, and items, instead of pausing your game and making the other people wait while you thumb through a book.
