Is Your D&D Character Rare?
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
I've stumbled across this article at https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/.
The most popular races and classes in ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
Class and race combinations per 100,000 characters that players created on D&D Beyond from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15, 2017
Gnome sorcerers are relatively rare
The most popular races and classes in ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
Class and race combinations per 100,000 characters that players created on D&D Beyond from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15, 2017
Gnome sorcerers are relatively rare
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Comments
...and my character races aren't even listed there...
Also, "called shot" was a triple roll, with 2 rolls being in the upper half of the crit range and the third roll being a standard hit roll. So a crit range of 17-20 would need 2 rolls of 19+ plus a hit.
Immortals were the GMs interpretation of Highlander characters imported into the campaign setting. Incredibly high stats, and immortal. Not even physical disintegration kills them. They just eventually regenerate. Literally the only way to kill one was with a called shot decapitation.
Anyways.
No Pixies?
Hrm, guess that makes my Sainted Pixie Sorcerer/Thief/Gossamer Armiger/Some-Other-Prestige-class-I've-forgotten pretty rare. This character was designed to be a defensive powerhouse laying down most anything related to physical defense. The setting tended to be heavy on physical attacks, in strong part because of the power/necessity of the above called shots. By 30th (campaign setting mandatory character retirement level, after which they became NPCs with cameo appearances) I used house rules to stack up to 120 AC, with something like 90 Touch AC. GM said that 5,000 year old 120+ level Immortal characters (probably the most powerful thing that actually had known stats) would have had to roll to hit instead of just assuming guaranteed hits.
Although later my Pixie Wilder wound up being even more easily OP. It's like an even more free-form Sorcerer. The Perfect Artillery, capable of laying down so much elemental damage on the fly. So much. "What, it's immune to my 40d6 Fire Power I can use 30 times per day? Well fine, I'll just make it Cold. Oh, immune to that too, well the element is now Sonic."
And I was actually one of the least "strong" powergamer people in my group, since I rarely played the truly OP physically strong races such as (half)dragons, vampires, or Immortals.
Instead, I usually made literally generations of pixie sorc/thieves, so often that that became my group's general nickname for me. (In 4 RL years, probably about 500 years passed in setting).
That gaming group was proof that game balance and mechanics come second to good storytelling.
Is anyone surprised at this point?
My apologies if my opinion is different than yours.
The most rare PC type I have used in tabletop and gained some levels with was half orc druid. Which isn't even that rare.
the most "common" race/class combo I play somewhat frequently is a human or elven bard (my go-to when I'm not allowed to be a gith), which is still pretty low on the list.
I also like halflings, because I too am short and cheerful
oh and one last thing, I'm actually surprised there were as many aarakocra as there were here. I don't think I've ever met a single person who's played one.