Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition offers a wide roster of base classes and dozens of subclasses, each defining distinct fantasy roles through core abilities, progression features, and customization choices. This reference explains every official class and subclass released in the foundational Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, focusing on how they function and when to choose them. Use this overview to compare martial, caster, and hybrid options, understand key mechanics like spellcasting and fighting style features, and make informed decisions for character concept and party role.
Overview of Core Classes in 5e
Classes determine your character’s core identity, defining hit points, proficiencies, saving throw strengths, skill versatility, and primary capabilities in and out of combat. Selecting a class establishes your baseline path for growth, with each offering a distinct fantasy and mechanical focus. Subclasses, taken at level 3, narrow that focus further by granting specialized features that shape your playstyle. Below, each class and its subclasses are summarized for long-term usefulness, emphasizing enduring design choices rather than one-off campaign variants.
Barbarian: Rage and Resilience
Path of the Berserker
The Barbarian excels as a durable striker who leverages rage to fuel powerful attacks and resistance to damage. Frenzy, Unarmored Defense, and Reckless Attack establish a straightforward, offense-forward fantasy. At level 3, choose a Path; Path of the Berserker emphasizes aggressive damage output and battlefield control, making it a durable choice for players who want to charge in and break enemy lines.
Path of the Totem Warrior
Path of the Totem Warrior leans into spirit and camaraderie, granting defensive buffs, limited healing, and enhancements to allies. The totem spirits—such as Bear, Wolf, and Eagle—provide thematic cohesion and mechanical benefits like extra durability or reach. This path suits groups that value supporting teammates while maintaining a strong frontline presence.
Bard: Versatile Face and Support
Bards rely on charisma, versatile spellcasting, and a wide toolbox of skills to fill social and tactical roles. Their unique resource, Bardic Inspiration, allows them to boost allies’ rolls across the table, reinforcing the support fantasy. Bard spells emphasize control, buffing, and debuffing, and they gain access to magical music and cutting words to shape the flow of combat.
College of Lore
College of Lore bards know a little about everything, gaining bonus skills, the ability to regain limited uses, and cutting remarks that shape enemy behavior. This archetype reinforces the bard’s role as a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, excelling at problem-solving and social maneuvering in almost any setting.
College of Valor
College of Valor bards focus on martial prowess, gaining extra combat features, medium armor proficiency, and the capability to fight alongside allies. Their inspiring competence and heroism effects make them robust frontline performers who can both swing a sword and bolster the party’s chances in key moments.
Cleric: Divine Power and Domain Authority
Clerics channel divine might through a chosen domain, defining their toolkit and identity. They possess strong hit points, medium armor and shield proficiencies, and a robust spell list filled with healing, protection, and control. Wisdom governs their spellcasting and key checks, making wisdom investment central to their effectiveness.
Forge Domain
Forge Domain clerics shape metal and flame, granting allies extra attacks, durability, and the option to imbue weapons without a spell slot. Their bonus reaction and defensive mobility features make them unexpectedly resilient and proactive in combat, especially at lower levels.
Life Domain
Life Domain focuses on healing and sustainability, providing the strongest suite of healing options in the game. Enhanced restoration, mass healing, and the ability to convert damage into healing reinforce the Life domain as a pillar of group endurance and support.
Trickery Domain
Trickery Domain clerics excel at misdirection, with illusions, deceptive movement, and enemy-disrupting options. Their bonus action to hide, unseen servitor, and ability to mimic others make them strong choices for intrigue-heavy campaigns and tactical skirmishes.
Druid: Shapeshifting and Terrain Mastery
Druids draw from the essence of nature, using Wild Shape to assume forms that suit the task at hand. They operate with a distinct spell list, limited to wooden armor and shields, and rely on concentration for many of their powerful defensive options. At level 2, Circle choice defines their role in the party.
Circle of the Land
Circle of the Land is the classic buffer and controller, enhancing allies with bonus spells and defensive foresight. They gain additional spell slots and ritual casting, making them durable and efficient utility casters over the long term.
Circle of the Moon
Circle of the Moon emphasizes potent Wild Shape usage, extending transformed duration, improving stat scaling, and enabling more frequent shifts. This circle is optimized for front-line durability and damage in animal form, at the cost of some spell flexibility.
Circle of the Shepherd
Circle of the Shepherd leans into spectral allies, granting extra creatures to protect the party and operate independently. Their focus on conjuration and spirit allies makes them strong in drawn-out encounters where sustained presence matters.
Fighter: Martial Mastery and Customization
Fighters gain the most fighting style and ability improvement advancements of any class, making them consistently strong across an extended campaign. With the widest selection of fighting styles and maneuvers from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, they build to a powerful late-game apex through action surge and durable tactics.
Champion
Champions maximize damage potential through Improved Critical, extending their critical hit range to 18–20. Second Wind and Action Surge provide reliable durability and tempo, making Champions straightforward, high-output strikers at all tiers.
Battle Master
Battle Masters employ maneuver dice to control the battlefield, reposition enemies, and enable tactical combos. This archetype rewards planning and precision, offering strong out-of-combat utility and consistent impact in skirmishes.
Eldritch Knight
Eldritch Knights blend martial training with spellcasting, learning cantrips and additional spells from the abjuration and evocation schools. They gain limited spell slots and powerful ritual options, functioning as a flexible, hybrid combatant with enhanced survivability.
Monk: Mobility and Precision
Monks focus on mobility, unarmed strikes, and swift action economy, excelling at hit-and-run tactics and precision damage. They rely on Dexterity and Wisdom, and feature fewer hit points than many martial options. Ki points fuel distinctive abilities that define the monk fantasy across multiple levels.
Way of the Open Hand
Way of the Open Hand emphasizes control and durability, adding stunning effects, healing, and enhanced throws. By level 17, they can protect allies from attacks and reliably disrupt enemy formations through stunning and intercept features.
Way of the Shadow
Way of the Shadow monks specialize in stealth and burst damage, gaining darkvision, innate spellcasting, and strong mobility options. They can disappear in a flash, teleport short distances, and strike with extra damage, making them adept infiltrators and duelists.
Paladin: Oath and Divine Might
Paladins combine charisma-based spellcasting with martial durability, gaining Lay on Hands for healing and oath spells that define their identity. They possess strong defensive auras, smite damage, and spell lists tuned for protection and radiant damage, aligning closely with classic heroic fantasy.
Oath of Devotion
Oath of Devotion paladins focus on purity, protection, and radiant damage, with strong anti-undead features and reliable healing. Their auras provide consistent, long-term value in social and combat scenarios, reinforcing the classic lawful good hero fantasy.
Oath of the Ancients
Oath of the Ancients emphasizes defense and battlefield control, using radiant damage and protective vow enhancements. They excel at holding lines, countering spellcasters, and shielding allies, making them durable pillars in drawn-out conflicts.
Oath of Vengeance
Oath of Vengeance centers on pursuit and forced attrition, granting tracking abilities, reliable damage boosts, and reactive movement. Their focus on hunting targets and punishing enemy actions suits campaigns built around pursuit and moral ambiguity.
Ranger: Scout and Hunter
Rangers combine martial and spellcasting capabilities with strong exploration tools, excelling at navigating terrain and engaging from a distance. Their favored enemies and fighting styles provide early customization, while class features emphasize mobility and resourcefulness in the wild.
Hunter
Hunters specialize in tactical control, using a dedicated companion and extra damage maneuvers to manage enemy groups. Their multiattack enhancements and defensive options make them reliable in prolonged engagements where positioning matters.
Gloom Stalker
Gloom Stalkers thrive in darkness and ambush scenarios, gaining bonuses to surprise and reliable extra turns in stealthy conditions. They excel at controlling the battlefield in low-visibility encounters, making them particularly strong in horror or dungeon-heavy campaigns.
Rogue: Skill and Surprise
Rogues center on precision, expertise, and cunning actions, excelling at burst damage, skill utility, and tactical positioning. Sneak Attack defines their damage profile, and their strong skill coverage supports a variety of investigative and social approaches. Thieves’ Cant and cunning action underpin the iconic rogue fantasy.
Assassin
Assassins focus on burst elimination, with features like Assassinate and improved Death Strike that reward patience and setup. They perform best when they can position safely and strike key targets, making them potent in both social and combat ambushes.
Arcane Trickster
Arcane Tricksters blend minor spellcasting with classic rogue tools, using spells to enhance stealth, control, and information gathering. Their versatility across skill, spell, and damage domains makes them adaptable across many table contexts.
Swashbuckler
Swashbucklers emphasize daring offense and defensive panache, gaining reliable damage mitigation, dueling prowess, and mobility. Features like Fancy Footwork and Rakish Audacity make them durable skirmishers who can dance in and out of danger.
Sorcerer: Innate Magic and Wild Surge
Sorcerers wield innate spellcasting fueled by Sorcery Points, enabling metamagic customization and potent spell effects. Their limited spell slots encourage deliberate choices, while metamagic options like Twinned Spell and Distant Wind Shape distinct fantasy identities.
Draconic Bloodline
Draconic Bloodline sorcerers gain damage resistance, breath weapon capabilities, and scaling damage boosts tied to their draconic ancestry. These features make them durable and consistently impactful in direct confrontations.
Wild Magic
Wild Magic embraces chaotic magic, offering unpredictable surge effects, bonus spell slots on crits, and creative tactical outcomes. This archetype suits players who enjoy dynamic, high-variance play and storytelling through surprising magical events.
Warlock: Pact Boons and Invocations
Warlocks draw power from pacts with extraplanar patrons, gaining limited but impactful spell slots and invocations that define their role. Their eldritch abilities and versatile spell lists allow them to specialize in damage, control, or support roles with distinct flavor.
Archfey
Archfey warlocks blend illusion and charm, gaining benefits tied to the feywild and access to potent charm and control spells. Their otherworldly presence and eldritch invocations support both social and tactical flexibility.
Fiend
Fiend warlocks focus on damage and survivability, gaining fire resistance and reliable offensive options. Their features encourage aggressive positioning and efficient use of limited spell resources to maximize impact each turn.
Great Old One
Great Old One warlocks emphasize insight, madness, and mental effects, offering strong mind-reading and charm capabilities. Their expanded knowledge and eldritch sight invocations reinforce a cerebral, investigative approach.
Wizard: Arcane Study and Versatility
Wizards learn a broad spell list and specialize through schools of magic, gaining a robust toolkit of utility, control, and damage spells. They prepare spells daily, enabling significant flexibility across encounters, and their reliance on Intelligence shapes their progression and focus.