How to Choose Your D&D Character Race
The expanding world of D&D is full of exciting races, creatures, and monsters to play with. But it can be overwhelming trying to sift through all those stat blocks and lore.
In the next part of our Character Creation Toolkit series, we discuss different ways to choose and role-play the races in Player’s Handbook. We’ll also highlight the additions from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything that completely changes character creation.
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How to Choose Your D&D Race Index
What Is Race in Dungeons & Dragons?
Race is your character’s species or ancestry. It does not pertain to a character’s ethnic background.
The most popular races in D&D are Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, and Humans. Dragonborn, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, and Tieflings are considered rare or exotic.
Your D&D character race can be an essential facet of your character’s identity or simply a footnote for metagaming optimization.
Whatever your approach, the race you choose has an impact on your character.
How Race Impacts Your Character
Physical Appearance, Traits & Abilities
Race determines your physical appearance and characteristics.
Halflings are small, for example. That affects other things like how much they can carry, what weapons they can use, amongst other things.
Some races also have unique abilities. The dark elves, for example, have superior dark vision and innately know spells like Faerie Fire and Darkness from living in the Underdark.
However, they have sensitivity to sunlight, which disadvantages them on attack rolls and Perception checks while in the sun.
Knowing what traits and abilities affect your character is essential for new players to keep track of to avoid being blind-sided by potential drawbacks in a hairy situation.
Ability Score Increases
All races have ability score bonuses, or stat boosts, supporting each race’s standout characteristics.
For example, the Dwarves are renowned for their hardiness and get +2 to their constitution score, and an advantage on poison saving throws.
The subraces let you dial this in further with additional tweaks or benefits based on their lore.
Revisiting our Dwarf example, a Mountain Dwarf will also get a +2 to strength due to living in such a rugged environment. This makes Fighter a great choice for them.
Ability scores might be something you want to consider when thinking about your class.
Some races are inherently biased toward different classes. If your goal is to optimize, or min-max, your character, then picking your race with your class in mind is your best bet.
But don’t let what’s optimal force you into a choice that doesn’t fit the character you want to play.
Any race can succeed in any class, especially with the various subclass options available. Check out our post on how to level up character creation for more tips!
Plus, with the customization options made available in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, you can have your cake and eat it too!
Disposition Towards Others
Depending on your game, your character’s race could affect your disposition toward others and how others view your character.
The Player’s Handbook offers some guidelines on this based on the lore of the Forgotten Realms.
It’s no secret that Wizards of the Coast has been in hot water on numerous occasions for their representations of races in Dungeons & Dragons. The dark-skinned Drow being inherently evil or the controversy around the Hadozee are some examples of these missteps.
Let’s find better ways to represent characters, build tension, and tell these stories.
And we can start with judging characters by the decisions they make and actions they take, not by what color skin, plane of Hell, or Orcish lineage with which they’re born.
Referring back to our post on zero sessions, this is a perfect topic to discuss. You have the power to set this for your games.
Roleplaying
Your character’s race provides a rich background for roleplaying.
Each of the races has its history, lore, preferences, and general disposition toward others. But, if you don’t want to play the typical haughty High Elf, you can always break the mold to create a unique and exciting character.
Once again, subraces come into play to diversify the races further. For example, a High Elf and Wood Elf have very different histories and perspectives that make them very different to play even though they’re both elves.
Your playstyle and preference will help you bring those features into your character.
If you’re interested in roleplaying, pulling from the rich histories provided or creating your own gives you a more profound attachment to the character.
This makes it much easier to slip into their adventuring boots and let their story play out.
What D&D Race Should I Play?
There are two main ways to pick your race - min/maxing and storytelling.
Both are fun and valid, depending on your preferences, playstyle, and table. Let’s briefly cover each one to see which camp you fall in.
Min/Maxing Your Character
Min/maxing, also known as optimizing or metagaming, is all about squeezing every advantage you can from your character to increase your likelihood of success for actions taken in the game.
And while you can still create an engaging character while optimizing them, the primary goal is to match the best stats and abilities with the character you want to play.
Here’s a simple example. Let’s say you want to play a Paladin. And you want to be the very best Paladin the Forgotten Realms has ever known.
A top choice for you would be the Dragonborn, who gets +2 to Strength and +1 to their Charisma.
With this simple racial choice, you’re slightly more optimized for the role you want to play.
Notice we used the word slightly. At low levels, a one or two-point difference in ability scores isn’t going to make or break your games by any means.
However, they might make a difference in higher levels or through more difficult campaigns.
There are other ways to min/max, as well. This involves using feats, traits, and other features in the game to bring out the best in your character.
It’s fun to put different combinations together to create a powerful character, but sometimes that can also result in them being a one-trick pony.
Beware the Siren’s call of game mechanics and focus on creating compelling characters instead.
Focusing on mechanics often leads to lusting for other features instead of enjoying the character you’re playing.
Roleplaying Your Character
The other method of choosing your race emphasizes character building and story development over optimal stats or attributes.
There are so many fascinating races to experience, and bringing them to life with rich backstories, histories, and adventures is every bit as rewarding as rolling a little higher on your attack rolls. Check out our FREE Character Backstory template and guide for more tips!
When picking a race you want to play, do you want to embody its characteristics? Or do you want to break the mold and be the first of your clan that dares do something different?
Having a good idea of a race, like the Dwarves from the Lord of the Rings movies, makes them easy to roleplay. But how does a Tiefling experience the world?
For those who like to roleplay, answering these questions is what draws us to the game.
Useful D&D Racial Abilities & Features
All the races in D&D have features and traits that make them unique, although objectively, some are more powerful than others.
Darkvision, for example, makes stealthily exploring caves and dungeons slightly less tricky to navigate. But without it, a different approach might be required.
Some races get inherent spells they can cast, like the Dark Elves and their Faerie Fire. Others, like Halflings, get traits that channel their inherent luck and lets them re-roll failures.
Here’s a list of the most useful D&D racial abilities and features to consider and why:
Darkvision - see in the dark without a torch or magical light
Spells - extra spellcasting resources and options
Stealthiness - a significant boost to Rogues and sneaky-types
Fey Ancestry - makes a character resistant to magic and need less sleep
Lucky - re-rolling failures can change the very weave of fate
Proficiencies - higher success rates with a broader range of skills
When In Doubt, Make Your Own!
Even with all the official expansions and unofficial Unearthed Arcana, you might not find exactly what you have in mind. Thankfully, with the release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, players get new customization options to perfect their character.
In this optional rule variant, players are allowed to tweak existing races with the following parameters:
Change the Ability Score Increase (ASI) gained from their race to a different ability score
Swap languages
Swap proficiencies
Alternatively, players can also create a Custom Lineage, which lets them make their own race using the following template:
Size is Small or Medium
30 ft. move speed
+2 to any ability score
1 Feat
Darkvision 60 ft. or a skill proficiency
Common + 1 language
Pick What’s Right For You
Ultimately, choosing a race comes down to preference. Whether you min/max or roleplay, we hope this guide on how to choose your D&D race helps you come up with an original character for your roleplaying games.