Reading a D&D Character Sheet Explained: The Complete Guide

Hey there! This website does contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through this page, Cats and Dice may earn a share of sales from the link. Learn more.

Dungeons and Dragons is an awesome roleplaying game of fantasy, filled with imagination and lucky dice rolls. It can feel like a lot to start playing Dungeons and Dragons, but you need surprisingly little knowledge to start. You can even play on a budget. But if you only learn one thing before playing a game, make it reading a D&D character sheet.

Reading a D&D character sheet can feel like a lot, and that’s true at first. Soon, though, you will see how everything connects and you’ll find a flow to it. Make sure you have the materials outlined in the next section. Then, get ready for this complete guide to reading a D&D character sheet.

What You Need to Read a D&D Character Sheet

Great news! You can learn to read a D&D character sheet for $0. Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns and publishes Dungeons and Dragons, has great free resources for you. Other websites offer free and low-cost tools to help you play, too. 

First, let’s start off with the character sheet itself. For this guide, we will use one of the character sheets from the D&D Starter Set. (If you want to invest a little into your gameplay, this really gets you a good bang for your buck. I highly recommend it.) For the purpose of reading this now, go ahead and find the Wizard character sheet on Page 7 of their free document.

You can print this out if you’d like or view it on your device. 

Next, let’s get a ruleset going. One other D&D investment I strongly recommend is a copy of the Player’s Handbook. It’s probably the most important $30 you will ever spend for D&D. The Basic Rules will give you what you need to start out (and to read this post), but you’ll want the Player’s Handbook after more than one or two games. Again, if you don’t have it, download the Basic Rules now. You can find a blank character sheet on Page 177 of this PDF if you’d like to view that, too

As a quick note, if you have some experience with reading a D&D character sheet and it doesn’t look like the one above, it might come from a different source. Lots of community creators have made beautiful and unique D&D character sheets. Or, you might have seen a printout from D&D Beyond, a popular and easy-to-use character creation tool. For now, let’s stick to an official sheet for continuity. 

If you printed out the character sheet and/or rules, you might also want a pencil as we go through this sheet to make notes. It’s totally up to you!

Throughout this guide, some words are bolded. These are D&D terms that can be found in the index of the Player’s Handbook to easily learn more about them.

Sections for Reading a D&D Character Sheet

Let’s explain the sections of a D&D character sheet before we go in-depth. You will see seven basic parts of a character sheet.

1. Basic information at the top.
2. Ability Scores on the left.
3. Combat information in the center.
4. Features and Traits on the right.
5. Proficiencies, Languages, and Equipment at the bottom.
6. Backstory information on Page 2.
7. Spells on Page 3.

The free PDF of the Starter Set characters does not include the spell sheet, so you will either want to look to the rules for that or have a copy of the Starter Set with you.

With that, let’s check out each of these parts of the character sheet. They are ordered approximately by how important they are and how often you will use them.

Your Character’s Elevator Pitch

The information you fill in at the top – your name, class, race, and so on – may seem like the most straightforward information when reading a D&D character sheet. Players often agonize over it, though. Why? Because it sets the stage for the rest of your character.

Many players and Dungeon Masters, or DMs, create character names using the Fantasy Name Generator. If you have one locked and loaded, that works, too. Your level and experience points are also easy; your DM will tell you what they are. And hopefully you have your own player name covered!

As for class and race options, this is where you need to pull out the Player’s Handbook or the Basic Rules. Even though the rules present race choices first, many seasoned players will choose a class first and then choose a race to help them maximize their class. As a new player, you’ll likely have the most fun by simply choosing what speaks to you. 

Information on background choices are also available in the rules. Just like your character’s race, your background will help give flavor to your roleplay during the game. It will also give you extra skills beyond your class.

Finally, your alignment helps with making choices as your character. Are they good, evil, or do they decide in the moment? Do they follow the law or a strict moral code, or do they make choices based on their love of chaos? This will help you make choices in game.

Building a character is a whole article for another time, but the ruleset will give you a lot of information. A seasoned DM can help, too. 

Although this article is not about building your character, the information in this section determines all the other information on your sheet, so you will want to understand your character. 

Let’s see how this works on the Starter Set premade Wizard character. Notice this wizard does not have a name, but you do see their class, level, race, background, and alignment. We’ll see how some of this information comes into play later. 

Let’s Talk Ability Scores

Most of your focus during gameplay will go to this part of your D&D character sheet. All of your rolls outside of combat will use numbers found over here, so let’s talk about how to read it. 

First, you have the six main ability scores and what they generally show about your character.

• Strength: how easily your character can lift or push heavy things.
• Dexterity: how quickly or deftly your character can move.
• Constitution: your character’s ability to fight off poison, disease, or other ailments within the body.
• Intelligence: the level of booksmarts your character has, or what kind of information your character has learned.
• Wisdom: your character’s street smarts, or how easily they can intuit information.
• Charisma: the strength of your character’s personality.

There are two numbers in these boxes. The higher value number without a plus or minus sign is your overall score. You don’t really need to look at that number when playing. That’s why it’s often in the smaller bubble. It exists to decide the second number

Instead, look at the number with the plus or minus sign. That’s your modifier. You will add this number to your rolls when your DM tells you to. The bigger the modifier, the better you are at that skill. 

For example, you can see in the character example at the side that this wizard has an Intelligence of 16, giving them a +3 modifier. They are considered a smart character. Their Charisma is only 8, though, giving them a -1 to their modifier. There’s a chart in the Player’s Handbook that explains the math at play here.

Subskills 

All the numbers to the right of these are decided by the main modifiers. They are what I like to call subskills, based on these six main skills. An official character sheet will share in parentheses which skills are based on which. Persuasion, for example, is based on Charisma noted by the (Cha) next to the skill. 

Saving Throws

Above that, you will see a section called Saving Throws. Like the subskills, these will match your modifiers on the left-hand side unless you are proficient in any of them. Then, you will add your proficiency bonus.

Other Modifiers

Then, there’s two spaces above all the modifiers. The Proficiency Bonus is determined by your character’s level. At level 1, you have a Proficiency Bonus of +2. Inspiration, on the other hand, is something earned in game by a Bard or the DM. It doesn’t come up often, so make sure to ask your DM when it does.

Down here, you also see something called “Passive Wisdom (Perception).” Some other character sheets might also include Insight and Investigation as passive scores. These are more or less for your DM. They are a way to help your DM determine if you would be able to notice something without asking you to roll for it. This can allow players to stay in the story more and think of the game less as a game. 

So, for the Wizard character sheet, you can see the modifiers in the example to the right. Take note of the smaller modifiers and how some of the bubbles are filled in. These are the subskills this character is proficient in. This character gets to add their proficiency bonus to these rolls. The character sheet has already added that into the number. Religion, for example, is +5 because the character has a +3 in Intelligence. Then, they add a +2 for proficiency. 

Wanna Fight About It?

Next, we have the second most important section when reading a D&D character sheet, which focuses on combat. At the top, you’ll see three smaller boxes for Armor Class (AC), Initiative, and Speed or movement. 

Your AC determines how hard you are to hit. The faster you are (decided through Dexterity) or the more armor you have on, the higher your AC will be. 

Your initiative decides when your turn is during combat. It matches your Dexterity modifier. Like other modifiers, you will add this number to a dice roll when it’s time to enter combat. 

Your speed decides how far you can move in a turn during combat. How combat works is yet another article.

Below that are your Hit Points, or HP. Every time you get hit, you will lose some of these. The Hit Point Maximum at the top will remind you of all the hit points you are capable of, no matter how many you lose. If your current HP ever gets to 0, your character is unconscious and could die. Temporary Hit Points are added with the help of different spells and effects. Your DM or another player will let you know when to add a number here. 

Now, let’s get to healing and dying. In this left box, you will see the Hit Dice. Hit Dice let you restore some of your HP when taking a short rest in the game ( about an hour in-game). When you rest, you will have Hit Dice equal to your character’s level, so a level 1 character has one, while a level 12 character has 12 to use. The type of die is determined by your class. You regain these after a full rest, or a good night’s sleep.

You can see on the Wizard here that they have 1d6 for their Hit Dice. That means they can roll 1d6 during a short rest to regain that many hit points, up to 8. So if the Wizard were down to 2 HP and rolled a 4 on a d6, they would be back up to 6 HP.

As for death saving throws, we all hope we will never have to make these. But adventuring is dangerous, and it’s likely you will. When your character reaches 0 hit points, at the beginning of your turn, you will instead make a Death Save with a d20. They work like this:

• Roll a 10 or above and you succeed once. 
• Roll a 9 or below and you fail once. 
• If you roll a 1 and you automatically fail twice. 
• If you roll a 20 and you automatically regain 1 HP.

After succeeding three times while unconscious, you become stable. But if you roll three failures while unconscious, your character has permanently died (aside from powerful magic). 

Attacks & Spellcasting

For something more exciting, the Attacks & Spellcasting section helps you to kill some bad guys before they kill you. The weapon you have and the spells you can cast (more on both these later) will decide what you can use to fight and how much damage it will do. The modifier for your character’s weapon will either come from Strength or Dexterity and often will add the Proficiency Bonus.

The Wizard’s shortsword, for example, has a +4 modifier to the attack and gives 1d6+2 damage on a hit. The damage is always the same for that weapon. The modifier for this weapon comes from the Wizard’s Dexterity modifier plus their Proficiency Bonus.

As for the spells, keep reading for “It’s All So Magical” below. Spellcasting works similarly to weapon attacks, which is why it’s noted here. The exact numbers you need, though, are on a different page.

So a standard turn will look something like this while reading a D&D character sheet:

• You roll for Initiative and roll higher than what you’re fighting, so you get to go first.
•  On your turn, you move your movement to get within melee of the creature (next to it) to fight it. You use your weapon, and with the Attack Bonus modifier, you hit because the number is higher than the creature’s Armor Class. You then roll the damage for that weapon to find out how much HP the creature loses. 
• On the creature’s turn, it rolls to attack you as well. It rolls higher than your AC, so it hits you. You lose 2 HP, so you mark that on your sheet. 

A combat turn can look very different. This is just a short example to show you how you would use your character sheet in combat. 

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

If you’ve made it this far, you have the vast majority of what you need for reading a D&D character sheet explained. The Features and Traits section is an important addition, though. Here, you will find extra abilities your character has thanks to their class and race. 

What kinds of things will you find here? Generally speaking, take a look at this section if your DM asks you about:

• Bonus Actions (during combat)
• Darkvision
• Feats 
• Class-specific languages

Basically, if you want to see if your character is extra capable in a particular skill due to their class, race, size, or background in ways others might not be, check here. You can see that the character sheet provided by Wizards of the Coast is very comprehensive, making it a great place to start. 

If you’re looking for something that’s not here that you think should be, check out the “Other Proficiencies and Languages” on the bottom left. Here, you’ll find languages you know, weapons and armor you can easily use, and other tools you know how to use. 

The main difference between this box versus the “Features and Traits” is that these don’t require full-sentence explanations. Instead, it will be things you can simply list.

I Love Your Chainmail!

In the bottom center of a standard character sheet, you’ll see your Equipment section. This is mostly used to see how much money you have on hand, denoted by copper, silver, gold, and platinum. (Electrum is there, too, but it’s kind of the equivalent of a $2 bill. It’s so rarely used, it’s almost not worth having.)

Each section is noted by the initials of the metal, starting with copper as “CP” for “copper piece.” The wizard here starts out with 5 gold pieces, or GP. How much money your character starts with is largely determined by their backstory. A noble, for example, would have much more money than a hermit.

Otherwise, here you’ll find other equipment you are wearing. This is different from other objects and treasure you have, which goes in the “Treasure” section of page two.

This distinction is important for several reasons:

• Armor only helps you AC in combat if you are wearing it.
• Magic items work only if you are attuned to them. (The item description will tell you if you need attunement. The rules will tell you what that means.)
• You can only attack with equipped weapons.

Oftentimes, you will also find adventuring equipment here, things like tinder boxes and bedrolls. This mostly matters for carrying weight. That means that your character can only carry so much before they become encumbered in both fighting and travel. Different DMs handle weight differently, so speak to yours about what information needs to go here. 

What About My Tragic Backstory?

Now, some new players have a bit of difficulty coming up with a backstory or maybe even understanding its purpose. Most backstory information (different from background) goes on page two, especially in the “Character Backstory” section. However, the section in the top right of the first page of your sheet will help you determine and/or remember your backstory. 

These traits won’t necessarily come up as specific calls to action, but they will help you decide what choices your character would make in the moment. So if your character, for example, values honesty and honor above all else, they’re not likely to try to lie to a character in most situations. 

In other words, you can use this section to help narrow down choices for your character. This helps if you feel overwhelmed with options, or if you want your character to offer something unique from the rest of the party. 

There are generators that will help you come up with personality traits for your character and flesh out your backstory. Many DMs also offer a Session 0 for character creation. There, you can discuss different backstory options to answer questions like where you’re from and who you might already know in the game. 

It’s All So Magical

If you decide not to play a spellcaster, like a Barbarian, you’re pretty much done! Most players, however, will play a spellcaster at least once. So, you need to know how to read the spellcasting section of a character sheet. Often found on Page 3, this page is very customizable depending on your class. 

Let’s start at the top. First, you’ll put in your class simply as a reminder. (Once you get to Level 3 or higher, you might add your subclass, too.) Next, you’ll add your spellcasting ability, which is the skill set your class uses to cast spells. Then, you’ll add your spell save DC, which is the number your opponent needs to roll above if they want to resist the effects of one of your spells. Finally, you add your spell attack bonus, which works like a weapon bonus only for spells. The class section of the rules will tell you how to fill all this in. 

Now, which spells you have available to you and where to put them depends on your class, but every class will read this sheet in the same way. 

Each spell has a level noted next to the spell in the rules. When you “equip” a spell, you will list it under that level. Cantrips are considered “level 0” spells and will go there. Many classes will list all the spells available to them, but not every spell is available every day. To make a spell available in a game day, you will check the bubble next to it for preparing spells. To make this even easier to follow and build out, you might want to invest in some spellbook cards for your character’s class.

As you play, you will need to mark each level spell with how many spell slots you have for that level, determined by your class and character level. Every time you use a spell then, you need to note that you used a spell slot and mark which level you used it at. This resets after a long rest. 

The higher your level, the more this will fill out. At level 1, you will only have the Cantrips and level 1 section filled out at most, which will help you ease into things. 

Build a D&D Character Sheet or “Buy” One?

This is a lot of information to take in, especially if you’re a new player. Don’t fear! No one expects you to remember all this right away, or even after a long time. Seasoned players constantly revisit their character sheet and what each part means. So this leads itself to another question, then. Do you want to build out a character yourself with Chapter 1 of the Player’s Handbook, or do you simply want to use a premade one?

There are pros and cons to each. Building your character sheet out yourself gives you a comprehensive understanding of your character and their skills. However, it can take time. The Player’s Handbook helps a lot, but a premade character takes less time and allows you to focus on other rules. You won’t be as familiar with your character, though. 

Some DMs want their players to build characters a certain way. They might use the standard rules in Chapter 1 of the Player’s Handbook by rolling for ability scores. Or, they might use the standard array or point buy methods. Make sure to ask your DM if they have a preference.

As a personal recommendation if your DM has no preference, I suggest that new players start with the D&D Beyond quick build function. Or, use an official character by Wizards of the Coast like the one used in the examples above. 

Use the quick build if you have a sense of what class, race, and background you want to play. Or, choose a completely pre-made character if you have no sense of that at all and want to just try the game out. 

In other words, if you don’t have a strong feeling about the character you play, there’s no reason to add that on to yourself. Just focus on getting the basics down in the meantime. 

The End is the Beginning

If you made it to the end, congratulations! You now have what you need to know about reading a D&D character sheet explained. Make sure to bookmark this page to come back and reference it as needed because we all could use a reminder. 

Once you have your character, you will also want to bookmark the relevant pages in the rules for that character and/or note the pages needed on your character sheet. You can do this according to the ruleset you have. So if you’re using the Player’s Handbook, you might list (PHB p. “X”) next to each spell you have listed to remind you where the spell is and how it works, for example. Everything on your character sheet is intended to help you play the game better. So, go play!

And for the more auditory learners, here’s a loaded but hilarious video explaining it all from the great Crap Guide to D&D. 

What questions do you want explained about reading a D&D character sheet or creating a D&D character?