Dungeons And Dragons has experienced multiple renaissances over the years and another one seems to be on the horizon with the upcoming movie Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. D&D might be an amazing hobby, however, it is an arguably difficult one to get into. There is a lot of literature surrounding the game and picking up the players' handbook to create a character is a lengthy task including multiple chapters.
One of the milestone achievements in the history of the game was the introduction of online character builders. Creating a character through the scanning of books and filling out paper character sheets is a fun experience for some, but for those who find it a bit too lengthy, it is no longer a necessity.
Ninetails
If someone wishes to quickly create a character, start at level 1, and dive into their 5e campaign, Ninetails is the character builder for them. Players and Dungeon Masters alike very easily create their characters, using this builder.
Ninetails however, does not export character sheets and the character levels are capped at level 1. That being said, it is still a very good platform to enter this amazing hobby.
LitRPG
LitRPG is a paid subscription service but its extensive library alone makes up for the money spent. Players can very easily create fun-to-play characters with incredible backstories, through LitRPG.
LitRPG isn’t just great for players. Dungeon masters can use this platform to create and design their own NPCs, dungeons, spells, and maps. They offer a free, one-time sampler for those who wish to test their service out before subscribing.
Fast CB
Players usually need a single character to get through a campaign. Dungeon masters need many of them just to fill up a session. This is where Fast CB works like a charm. Their drop-down menus and handy generators really speed up the process.
Fast CB doesn’t support multiclassing but they still provide a very speedy service for dungeon masters who suddenly need a character sheet for that one funny NPC that the players decided to adopt out of the blue.
D&D Beyond
Where D&D Beyond truly shines is after the process of character creation for popular races. The character sheets created in D&D Beyond are very interactive with trackable slots and expanding explanations of spells, feats, and so much more in an instant.
D&D Beyond comes with its own built-in dice roller, and if the players are feeling old-school, they can easily export the character sheets and print them out. The character creation itself is a little time-consuming but it is a very educational experience that teaches new players the details of what they are about to get into.
AideDD
AideDD is another character builder that is perfect for beginners as it holds the user’s hand through each intricate step of character building. Even if it is time-consuming, the end result is a character created in great detail.
They may have some classes and races missing but they offer every spell ever mentioned across Dungeons And Dragons source books. AideDD also offers very easy exporting of character sheets.
Dungeon Master’s Vault
Dungeon Master’s Vault offers customizable characters at any level with exportable character sheets but those aren’t the selling points for this character builder. Dungeon Master’s Vault is perfect for home brewing.
Even though they don’t have every subclass or spell in the game, they give users the chance to add in their custom features, opening fun and easy doors for home brew.
Levi Blodgett’s Builder
This character builder takes the random generation approach and dials it up to eleven. It doesn’t just offer users randomly generated statistics, but supports those stats with logical versions of them, bringing slight optimization to the table.
It is not very customizable but it offers quick, simple, and easy-to-use character generation that can be exported as pdfs and brought to the table with ease.
Roll20 Charactermancer
When people couldn’t gather around their tables to play D&D or other tabletop RPGs, Roll20 was a great solution. The website doesn’t just have a great character builder. It is a platform for people to play many different great tabletop RPGs, ranging anywhere from World of Darkness to Mutants And Masterminds.
Even if the character sheets aren’t exportable, the built-in character builder of Roll 20 is perfect if the game is going to take place across the same website. It allows its users to easily customize their characters and get to playing.
5E Companion App
“The player who looks at his phone” is a dreaded archetype among D&D players. They are a pain on the backside of many DM’s around the world. Now? They can actually have a valid reason to have their phones on the table.
5E Companion App brings character creation to the mobile phone. The process of character creation is very customizable yet intuitive. It also is the perfect solution to the painful reality of a player losing their character sheet.
More Purple More Better
The experienced player's choice, MPMB requires a small monthly fee and works with Adobe Acrobat Reader to bring players and Dungeon Masters the most customizable experience possible. Not only does it allow users to work with custom or fan-made content, but it allows them to change the very design of the character sheet itself.
The character sheets for mounts, companions, and wild shapes are ingenious but the cherry on top is the ability for users to switch to metric units of measurement if they choose to. More Purple More Better is an open source project and its community is encouraged to create their own custom imports.