Best Subclasses for Your First D&D 5e Game
by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Dungeons & Dragons has a myriad of possibilities to build all kinds of crazy characters with special powers and abilities. Sifting through all of what the game has to offer is daunting- if you’re looking for some quick and easy options to start your experience off right, here are two recommendations per class that give you tools to help contribute to your party’s success, each denoting where you can find these subclasses.
Each option will have pros and cons for certain people; some will offer frequent choices and customizability at the expense of needing to dig into specific game elements, whereas others will give you everything up front, no additional resources needed, but may lack a lot of customization opportunity or raw power.
Some of my pros may be cons to you, or some of my cons, pros. Hopefully, this little guide gives some general insight into the differences between the options and can set you on a path to get the most out of your character.
Artificer
Artillerist (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
Artificer offers magical marvels in the form of enchanted equipment- the Artilierist weaponizes these into explosive options that will bombard enemies with a myriad of masterwork munitions.
Pros
Explosive. You’ve got a suite of awesome abilities out the gate that give you everything you need to blast foes to bits.
Flexible. You’re presented with a toolkit of unique abilities you can pick and choose when to use alongside a robust bonus spell list that will make every one of your turns feel open-ended.
Cons
Scaling. Your 5th level is a bit weaker than average, and your options don’t scale particularly well into the upper tiers.
Battle Smith (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
Want a pet robot built to defend you? Battle Smith kits you up with a defense pal alongside tools to improve your combat prowess, all in one convenient bucket.
Pros
Powerful. Not only does this allow you to attack with Intelligence and power you up with martial weapons, but you’re also given an entire extra character, bananas good spells, Extra Attack, and so much more.
Options. Having an extra character, your Steel Defender, sets you up to have a ton of options in every situation.
Cons
Complexity. Battle Smith requires a lot of tracking and reading to digest, including managing your Steel Defender’s character sheet and turn in combat.
Front-Loaded. Most of the option’s complexity comes at 3rd level- its 9th and 15th level features aren’t anything new to do, instead just being bonus boons that incidentally improve your already powerful tools.
Barbarian
Path of the Beast (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
Want to go full feral goblin mode on somebody, ripping them apart with your teeth and fingernails? Path of the Beast barbarian will do just that.
Pros
Simplicity. Path of the Beast gives you bonus skills, provides you with animal-like features to help you climb around the world, and empowers your attacks to rip people apart.
Flavor. You’ll immediately feel like the feral beast unleashed when you take this option.
Cons
Narrow. You’re not given other resources or complex abilities like Spells or Martial Maneuvers, nor have ample ways to further empower the new attacks you get.
Power. Barbarian as a whole isn’t the most powerful class in the world, and this option doesn’t give you a ton of extra help in that department, especially in the upper tiers.
Path of the Giant (Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants)
If you’ve come to the table looking to chuck things around in a blind rage, Path of the Giant provides you exactly what you want. You can rage, grow large, and stomp around like Godzilla.
Pros
Stature. This option makes you literally larger than life out the gate, immediately giving your character the “giant” look it promises.
Fun. There are some sweet abilities presented here that let you chuck enemies and allies alike; few options in the game so cleanly enable the fantasy they promise.
Cons
Weak Early. Your 3rd level feature isn’t particularly compelling beyond growing in size- you’ll be large.
Combat Focused. You’re not going to get much to do out of combat from this option, making your assistance out of combat be tied to future magic items and basic athletics checks.
Bard
College of Eloquence (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
D&D is about rolling dice and telling stories- the College of Eloquence makes you great at both!
Pros
Consistent. Silver Tongue makes you have an insanely high base result for Persuasion and Deception checks, making it impossible for a d20 to ruin these ability checks for you.
Empowering. The features offered take what the base bard does and amps them all up with huge quality-of-life upgrades that just feel good to play with.
Cons
Narrow. You aren’t given a lot of versatility; you’re going to be a supportive, charming character, and have little opportunity to expand outside of that within the subclass.
College of Lore (Player’s Handbook)
If you want a “build your own bard”, the College of Lore gives you the tools you’re looking for.
Pros
Variety. Lore bards get bonus Magical Secrets, granting them access to any spells in the game, and even more skills than a regular bard gets, letting you take your character basically in any magical direction you’d like.
Simplicity. Cutting Words is the most complex feature you get, and while it's a bit wordy, is easy to use; after that, you’ve got as streamlined a subclass as you could ask for.
Cons
Reading. If you don’t have an idea what kinds of bonus spells you want, you’re going to have to do a lot of reading or guessing to make the most out of your Additional Magical Secrets.
Mediocre Top-End. Peerless Skill is a fairly unremarkable ability- you’ll be leaning heavily on magical secrets and upper-level spells as your exciting features past 6th level.
Cleric
Order Domain (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
I adore this option. Not only does it embody the lawful good cleric whose identity is doing the right thing and helping the team, but it also has a deep well of options that expand out the utility of a lot of cleric’s bread and butter options without bloating it with a ton of complexity.
Pros
Build Around. This option rewards you for taking and using spells that empower allies, giving you a clear direction to explore and expand on as you progress through the game.
Cooperative. Your table can find a ton of opportunities to collaborate and make meaningful plans with you at the center, rewarding planning ahead and teamwork.
Cons
Party Dependent. Smaller groups without many weapon-wielding characters can find its core identity is hard to get value out of.
Lawfulness. D&D adventurers aren’t often going to regularly want to follow rules or obey laws, making this archetype pull against what an average party tends to want to do.
Tempest Domain (Player’s Handbook)
If you want to channel lightning to strike down your foes, Tempest Domain is a fantastic route to explore. You’ll be rewarded for worshipping gods of lightning and thunder with their wrath to turn against those who oppose you.
Pros
Fantasy. Out the gate, you get all the tools you’ll need to feel like a devotee to a storm god.
Direction. You have clear payoffs for using specific abilities and spells and are encouraged and rewarded for building in that direction without too much extra effort.
Cons
Narrow. Tempest Domain clerics aren’t going to play or look like the archetypal cleric, and don’t receive great support from the base cleric to grow in the direction it wants.
Druid
Circle of the Moon (Player’s Handbook)
Druid is the most complex class in the game- Circle of the Moon takes that complexity a step further. That being said, especially in the early game, Circle of the Moon delivers on the fantasy of transforming into animals and mauling creatures with frightening efficiency.
The only reason I’m recommending this option is because I know how many new druids play the class for wild shape. This is THE Wild Shape option.
Be warned: If you want the most out of it, you’ll need to do a lot of reading.
Pros
Becoming the Beast. There aren’t any options in the game that can give you this kind of gameplay this early- if you want to transform into a bear and thrash some goblins, Circle of the Moon will deliver.
Power. Combat Wild Shape offers you the largest boost of hit points you can get in the game while also functionally getting Extra Attack a full three levels before most classes get it.
Cons
COMPLEXITY. This one gets to be in all caps- not only does this option require an in-depth understanding of the mechanics behind Wild Shape, the game's most complex ability, but you need to also understand and have on hand all of the beasts you want to turn into.
Scaling. The CR system that determines what beasts you can turn into is a mess- your options don’t get all that much better as the game progresses, giving this subclass huge spikes in power that slowly dip over time. It’ll become progressively less worth it to transform and become more and more worth it to just rely on your upper-level spellcasting.
Circle of Wildfire (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
While still complex, the Circle of Wildfire provides a unique and powerful expansion of abilities that is a blast to play with. You are the raging inferno who destroys to make way for new life to thrive.
Pros
Utility. Your Wildfire Spirit can teleport you around and pepper enemies from a distance, all while you have your concentration available for whatever spells you’d like to cast paired with a banger spell list of useful little tricks.
Look. Wildfire druids embody a unique archetype that isn’t that easy to deliver on- the natural pyromancer- and have all the tools they need to embody that fantasy out the gate.
Cons
Tracking. Your Wildfire Spirit is an entire other character you have to manage- stack on top of this a Summon Beast and you’re going to have a character with a lot going on outside of their character sheet.
Fighter
Eldritch Knight (Player’s Handbook)
Spellcasting is an integral element of Dungeons & Dragons- Eldritch Knight gives the Fighter class a little taste. That little taste makes a world of difference in how you can engage in and out of combat.
Pros
Abilities. Picking Eldritch Knight automatically grants you more total abilities in spellcasting than the entire rest of your class has offered you up to this point.
Expanding Your Role. With spellcasting, you now can bring more to the table than attack rolls.
Feeling. Eldritch Knight does a solid job of making you feel like a hybrid sword and sorcery character capable of fighting with both a book and a blade.
Cons
Spellcasting. Some people who sign up for Fighter do so specifically to avoid having to learn the spellcasting rules.
Scaling. As you get your 3rd-level spell slots, other characters are getting 6th-level and higher spell slots, which can often diminish the feeling that you’re getting powerful new abilities.
Samurai (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything)
If you’re entirely against spellcasting, and don’t want to have to read a long list of new abilities, Samurai is a fantastic core upgrade for Fighter that will give you some meaningful decisions to make but doesn’t require you spend more than two minutes reading your new abilities and sticking them on your sheet.
Pros
Simplicity. Samurai is about as clean and straightforward an option as you can get while still providing you a new decision to make round to round.
Cons
Generic. Samurai, despite having the name of a classic archetype, doesn’t do a lot to give you the tools to feel like you’re playing that archetype.
Combat Focused. You get no out-of-combat expansions beyond skill checks or minor improvements to skill checks, which will leave you feeling like your class isn’t bringing much to the table when exploring a dungeon or adventuring environment.
Monk
Way of the Ascendant Dragon (Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons)
This isn’t going to be the last subclass to come from Fizban’s, and it's for good reason- this not only alleviates a lot of monk’s problems, but it makes you look like a dragon-monk while doing it.
Pros
Resources. Way of the Ascendant Dragon gives you so many more things to do, and that’s something early-game monks love to get.
Dragon. You get to look and play like a dragon- that’s freaking sweet.
Cons
Power. You aren’t going to get a ton of bonus power that’ll make your turns feel all that much better in the mid to upper tiers.
Way of Shadow (Player’s Handbook)
Ninjas are an iconic fantasy character type- with the Way of Shadow, you can slink around in the darkness, striking from darkness, being an absolute menace.
Pros
Utility. Monk wants tools that are cheap and offer a variety of options- Way of Shadow gives you useful tools for engaging with combat and exploration while looking awesome.
Flavor. Everything this option offers will give you the tools to feel like a master of shadows. Few options in the game feel this cohesive to play.
Cons
Costs. Your 3rd level feature does have some expensive options- early, it can feel challenging to use the feature outside of Minor Illusion.
Paladin
Oath of the Ancients (Player’s Handbook)
Paladin has departed the old days of being tied to gods and glory- now, they embody a morale code, and Oath of the Ancients perfectly encapsulates this switch. They’re natural wardens who seek to defend nature from destruction and come packed with a unique array of tools to make that happen.
Pros
Uniqueness. The Oath of the Ancients sets you clearly apart from most other paladin oaths with snaring roots and natural wrath.
Spells. Its Oath spell list is the best in the game in my opinion- it not only fulfills the fantasy they’re seeking to fulfill, but offers the class abilities that are uniquely interesting for Paladin with Misty Step, Plant Growth, and Ensnaring Strike all specifically shining, all coalescing with a final feature built to highlight this cultivated list.
Cons
Narrow. Many of your features line up well against specific kinds of enemies and can be useless in some fights.
Oath of Redemption (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything)
The Oath of Redemption replaces the Oath of Devotion for me as a good-aligned, lawful paladin who wants to make the world a better place. This option isn’t for playing a character who refuses to attack but plays great as a hesitant-to-strike negotiator who can protect themself and others when things turn sour.
Pros
Diversity. You’ve got a toolbox of abilities here that set you up great for negotiation encounters and combat encounters of all kinds.
Superb Defense. Counterspell and the subclass features set you up to play as the defender, allowing you to fight on axises often unavailable to the class.
Cons
Hesitancy. A lot of D&D tables are “shoot first, ask questions later”, which goes against the entire theme of this option.
Ranger
If you’re playing a ranger, I want to point you towards the revised features released in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything- these recommendations come with the understanding that you are using those features, not the original Player’s Handbook features.
Hunter (Player’s Handbook)
Sometimes you come to the table wanting to shoot things with a longbow or crossbow. Hunter can be the subclass for you.
Pros
Simplicity. Hunter gets streamlined, simple abilities that majorly improve your combative prowess in specific circumstances.
Versatility. Each level offers you a choice between two to three features that will fit well on a wide array of character sheets.
Cons
Combat-Locked. The features hunter gets only empower their combative prowess, gaining no out-of-combat utility from the subclass.
Unequal Features. When you’re given a choice of several options, some will be way more applicable than others, and avoiding the trap features can be tricky.
Drakewarden (Fizban’s Treasury of Dragon)
Want to be a dragon tamer? Look no further than Drakewarden!
Pros
Powerful. Having a companion you can resummon with a snap of your fingers naturally is baked with tons of power.
Fantasy. It delivers on a fantasy many people have in an enriching way immediately that expands as the game progresses organically.
Cons
Complex. Managing an entire second character comes with a lot of extra resources needed, including their stat block regularly on hand with an understanding of how all their abilities work, too.
Rogue
Arcane Trickster (Player’s Handbook)
Rogues thrive with just a little bit of magic on their sheet. Arcane Trickster not only provides that morsel of magic, but it also empowers it in ways that help it shine specifically on your sheet.
Pros
Versatility. Getting spellcasting on rogue opens up a world of possibilities for you both in and out of combat.
Flavor. Arcane Tricksters are bursting with flavor- you will feel like a magical prankster with your invisible Mage Hand and a myriad of tricks in your back pocket.
Cons
Spellcasting. You have to learn the spellcasting system, which is a whole pillar of the game with unique mechanics and rules.
⅓ Casting. You’ll get spells slower than every other spellcaster class at the table, and can often feel like your new spells in the upper tiers aren’t that exciting as you’ve watched your Wizards and Clerics use them for ten or more levels by that point.
Mastermind (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything)
If you want to scheme and plot, but don’t want to engage with whole new resource systems, be a Mastermind!
Pros
Team Player. As a Mastermind, you bring a lot of supportive options to your team who are helping you get your Sneak Attacks- everybody wins!
Simplicity. Most of what you get comes at 3rd level, and all of it plays within the realm of the mundane.
Cons
Planning. A lot of your boons come with needing to take proactive measures, including thinking ahead with your new kits.
Bumpy. Not all of your subclass features are winners, and you’ll have a level or two where you’re missing a splashy new effect.
Sorcerer
Aberrant Mind (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
If you saw a Mind Flayer or Beholder and thought “I want to do THAT kind of weird, otherworldly magic!” do I have the option for you!
Pros
Scaling Complexity. Their abilities all meaningfully empower your character’s performance early and slowly grow in complexity as your understanding of the game improves over time.
Resources. You’ve got resources for days with Abberant Mind; it offers you alternate casting methods for some of your spells that radically increase the number of spells you’re able to cast daily.
Cons
Evil. It can be hard to make this character fit into a good-aligned party- eventually, you get an ability that turns you into a flying eldritch horror, and up until that point you’ll be erupting inky tendrils from people.
Lunar Sorcery (Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen)
Currently, Lunar Sorcery is the option I most want to play on a new character. It adds a whole new minigame to sorcerer that makes it feel different than every other sorcerer option printed before it, all while providing powerful spell selections that shift around as you play.
Pros
Diverse Gameplay. This option more than most offers you a changing play pattern from session to session that will highlight some spells you otherwise may not engage with to much.
Rich Thematics. Your power waxes and wanes with the moon; the spell selections match the various motifs commonly associated with these phases, and your shifting options do feel like you’re moving through different lunar phases.
Cons
Complex. Your Lunar Embodiment requires tracking phases and reacting to a list of spells that is shifting around as the game progresses; knowing what spells do what and work with what abilities during which phases all adds a lot of tracking and reading to this option.
Warlock
Fathomless (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
Where Great Old Ones have unknowable tentacles of elder gods, fathomless warlocks get the boons of very knowable tentacles of large Karkens and other deep-sea monsters!
Pros
Play-Pattern. Tentacle of the Deep is their defining feature that gives you a unique and enriching play pattern you can have a blast playing around with in all kinds of builds.
Deep. While some of its features shine best in aquatic environments, there is a depth of power that works in any environment, making it a subclass that shines in water, and still functions great out of water.
Cons
Scaling. The damage on your Tentacle doesn’t scale particularly well.
Complexity. Some turns can be complicated, and there is a lot of depth in the mid-tiers as to where you’re placing your Tentacles of the Deep if you want to get the most out of your features.
Undead (Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft)
Not to be confused with the terrible Undying, the Undead patron from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft offers some spicy new spooky tools to your warlock’s character sheet.
Pros
Flexible. Like Fathomless, Undead offers you a signature ability, Form of Dread, that flexibility works with any kind of attack rolls you want to make.
Look. This option provides you the tools to look exactly how you want as you ascend into your dreadful form.
Cons
Spell Selection. Unfortunately, the spell options offered aren’t great for the early tiers, pushing you towards taking regular Warlock spells.
Spirit Projection. Spirit Projection is an odd ability and can be tricky to digest and get a lot of use out of effectively.
Wizard
School of Evocation (Player’s Handbook)
Some wizards spend hours locked in their library studying intricate numbers to divine the secrets of the universe- others are a bit more hands-on. Evocation magic is about explosions, and this subclass gives you a clean, easy route to blow things up.
Pros
Simplicity. While the core class remains complex, the School of Evocation streamlines your bonus abilities to keep your focus on the spells that define your spellbook.
Teamwork. School of Evocation wizards come with tools to fire off all their splashy area-of-effect spells while sculpting allies out of their mayhem.
Cons
Power. There isn’t a ton of extra juice in a School of Evocation, and some of the features won’t get much use at a lot of tables.
Theme. School of Evocation wizards are the most “generalist” wizard archetype- you aren’t necessarily going to feel more like an Evoker for taking this subclass like an Illusionist feels like an Illusionist with their School of Illusion features.
Order of Scribes (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything)
Want to dive into the thematics of being a studious magical scholar? Order of Scribes is packed full of flavorful, useful abilities that highlight your learned lifestyle and translate it beautifully to adventuring.
Pros
Flavor. You embody a scholar and have a wide array of tools that show this theme off to the whole table.
Utility. Order of Scribes have a ton of useful little features that give you options other wizard subclasses lack.
Cons
Complexity. To get the most out of Order of Scribes, you need to have a solid grasp of the core wizard and be ready to add more complex features to your sheet.
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