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Hail and well met, adventurer!
Embark on an epic odyssey into the realms of imagination with Dungeons & Dragons! This legendary tabletop role-playing game puts you in the hero's shoes, where danger lurks at every corner and glory awaits the brave. Unleash your creativity as you craft a unique character, wielding magic, swords, or wit to conquer treacherous dungeons, face vile monsters, and unravel mysteries beyond imagination. Collaborate with fellow adventurers, forging unbreakable bonds as you strategize, laugh, and overcome formidable challenges together. With boundless possibilities, exhilarating quests, and the power to shape worlds, Dungeons & Dragons is the ultimate adventure where legends are born, and heroes are made!
The 5th edition of D&D is a one-size-fits-all jack-of-all-trades system that can accommodate most styles of play, and it's the most commonly played RPG today.
Grab whichever character sheet on the right seems most appealing to you, and ask your DM to explain what all that stuff means. You don't need to understand all - or really any - of it to get going. Click the email link on the right to book a free session.
The videos below will give you a (slightly) more thorough overview of the game, albeit with some inevitable minor differences to how your next game will be played.
Below that, you'll find some sample level 1 character sheets.
The Basic Rules PDF is below that, after which are the "house rules" that I normally prefer to use in games. Playing fast and loose is an intrinsic part of the game, so don't mind the rules too much. That's the DM's job.
Yours is to roll dice and be merry.
Age: 12+
Group size: 4-7
Join a campaign, or choose the world you want to explore:
The Forgotten Realms of Faerun on the world of Toril (after the sundering from its twin planet Abeir): Explore the Tolkienesque fantasy setting, built atop layers of ancient civilizations built by mystical elves and mysterious Netherese. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Waterdeep, Icewind Dale, and the Red Wizards' mageocracy of Thay all exist here.
Eberron: A world named after one of the three Progenitor Dragons whose battle created it. Eberron became the ground, Khyber the Underdark, and Siberys the ring around it. Ride the lightning rail in this high-fantasy neo-noir steampunk pulp adventure after a century-long hot war turned cold by the mysterious cataclysm known as The Mourning.
Barovia, and other mist-beset Domains of Dread in the Shadowfell (also known as Ravenloft): Enter the perpetual nightmare of this classic Victorian gothic horror setting in a land, borne of the very sins of its Dread Lord and Master. He is the Ancient. He is the Land. You are merely a disobedient pawn on his chessboard.
The Feywild where laws of logic are the thrown out the window, tossed around by pixies, and may be bartered for a bracelet of your mother's shattered dreams. A landscape ruled by emotion. Everything is something else, but not unless it isn't. Hop along the grass with the white rabbit and hope a trip in the feywild ends shortly before hereafter is soon past dew.
Board a Spelljammer spaceship (like the ones in the BG3 trailer), explore the multiverse through the Astral Plane and hope you don't catch the attention of an infinitely large Dreadnought, or get hijacked by the eternally-warring psionic Mind Flayers and Gith, or crash into the world-sized remains of a forgotten dead god.
CHOOSE YOUR PATH
Ancestral Guardian
Battlerager
Beast
Berserker
Storm Herald
Totem Warrior
Wild Magic
Zealot
CHOOSE YOUR COLLEGE
Creation
Eloquence
Glamour
Lore
Spirits
Swords
Valor
Whispers
CHOOSE YOUR DOMAIN
Arcana
Death
Forge
Grave
Knowledge
Life
Light
Nature
Order
Peace
Tempest
Trickery
Twilight
War
CHOOSE YOUR CIRCLE
Dreams
Land
Moon
Shepherd
Spores
Stars
Wildlife
CHOOSE YOUR ARCHETYPE
Arcane Archer
Battle Master
Cavalier
Champion
Eldritch Knight
Psi Warrior
Purple Dragon Knight
Rune Knight
Samurai
CHOOSE YOUR TRADITION
Ascendant Dragon
Astral Self
Drunken Master
Four Elements
Kensei
Long Death
Mercy
Open Hand
Shadow
Sun Soul
CHOOSE YOUR OATH
Ancients
Conquest
Crown
Devotion
Glory
Oathbreaker
Redemption
Vengeance
Watchers
CHOOSE YOUR ARCHETYPE
Beast Master
Drake Warden
Fey Wanderer
Gloom Stalker
Horizon Walker
Hunter
Monster Slayer
Swarm Keeper
CHOOSE YOUR ARCHETYPE
Arcane Trickster
Assassin
Inquisitive
Mastermind
Phantom
Scout
Soulknife
Swashbuckler
Thief
CHOOSE YOUR ORIGIN
Aberrant Mind
Clockwork Soul
Divine Soul
Draconic Bloodline
Shadow Magic
Lunar Sorcery
Storm Sorcery
Wild Magic
CHOOSE YOUR PATRON
Archfey
Celestial
Fathomless
Fiend
Genie
Great Old One
Hexblade
Undead
Undying
CHOOSE YOUR SCHOOL
Abjuration
Bladesinging
Conjuration
Divination
Enchantment
Evocation
Illusion
Necromancy
Scribing
Transmutation
War Magic
A video by to Matt Colville, whose channel was the Dungeon Master academy that I needed and did not deserve.
The video that inspired me to get behind the DM screen and run adventures (after about 2 months of daily research for at least 2 hours at a time).
An overview of how the game works and runs, by media giant Vox.
This is one of the best Community episodes, and you can't get it on Netflix because it's "controversial" (maybe you can guess why).
So I feel vindicated in posting it here. As mentioned 2 videos above, this is one of the most accurate representations of a D&D game in media (Stranger Things is another, while Big Bang Theory is utter trash as usual).
Also, some people have turned the made-up story from this episode into a playable adventure... Because of course they did.
Let me know if you wanna play it.
The below Level 1 character sheets are up to date with all the latest source material for subclasses and all other optional features.
Where subclasses have spellcasting abilities (i.e. Fighter Eldritch Knight and Rogue Arcane Trickster), the class-specific spell sheet is included.
The only spell-free class below is the Barbarian.
These are smart PDF documents. Full functionality requires enabling JavaScript on Acrobat Reader; they do not work on any other PDF reader. They are preconfigured for specific classes, but their metadata makes them all potentially interchangeable. If you'd like to support their creator, you can do that here.
Basic Rules for D&D 5th Edition
This PDF is a good way to get familiar. If you read just 20% of it, you're ahead of most new players.
Permitted, with ability score requirements. Official sources are cool. Unearthed Arcana and 3rd-party sources may be permitted by DM fiat.
If a creature is providing cover for a missed creature and the attack roll exceeds the AC of the covering creature, the covering creature is damaged.
When a melee attack reduces an undamaged creature to 0 hit points, excess damage carries over to another creature nearby. If that creature was undamaged and is likewise reduced to 0 hit points, repeat this process.
A lingering injury (to be determined by the DM) occurs when a creature either:
- instantly takes more damage than half its max HP and fails a DC 15 CON save, or
- takes a critical hit or gets knocked unconscious
If a character is knocked unconscious, the player does not roll death saving throws; the Dungeon Master does.
If a character's class, race, or background is sufficiently relevant to an ability check, a proficiency die can be added to the roll.
This is ultimately decided by DM fiat.
A character who is not proficient in a skill may not attempt it.
If you're proficient in an ability/skill/attack, instead of adding a "flat" bonus, roll a die. This increases randomness and grants a small mathematical advantage, e.g. μ(1,2,3,4) = 2.5
Expertise means rolling the die twice.
Semi-proficiency means halving the die result (rounded down).
Character Proficiency Expertise
Level Flat Die Flat Die
1-4: +2 +1d4 +4 +2d4
5-8: +3 +1d6 +6 +2d6
9-12: +4 +1d8 +8 +2d8
13-16: +5 +1d10 +10 +2d10
17-20: +6 +1d12 +12 +2d12
you have reached the bottom of the hole