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Where to start when staring at a blank dungeons and dragons character sheet
Hopefully this scenario is filling you with joy not dread. Creating your own character or filling out the details of your character into a sheet, can start to fuel your role playing imagination. Your character’s back story will begin to solidify itself in your mind, when you are levelling up your character and filling out your sheet again it will also serve to remind you of character traits you might have forgotten about or give you extra ideas for how your character would behave as they progress through the campaign.
These instructions can be used to fill out any blank character sheet, but the order of filling out the fields in this entry is about filling out my printable and fillable A5 dungeons and dragons character sheet, available for sale below and in my store.
If it is dread, how about asking someone who loves forms or character creation to help you out?
What you will need to Fill out your 5e Fillable Character Sheet
If you don’t have a copy of the player’s handbook you can head on over to dndbeyond and use their character builder for free, but it only includes basic classes and if you want to use some character backgrounds or different classes, you are expected to purchase an electronic copy of the Player’s handbook to complete your character creation.
If you don’t have a physical set of dice, there are plenty of computerised online dice rollers that will roll any of the polyhedral dice for you. I prefer to actually roll the real dice, but the dice fairies are not my friends and I usually have what I feel is terrible luck when it comes to outcomes on any of the dice.
There are free blank official dungeons and dragons 5e character sheets available from the creators of the game. My version is offered as an alternative (for sale below), and is also electronically fillable if that is what you prefer. They also offer a pdf containing the basic 5th edition rules, this does not, however contain all the details that are in the player’s handbook, but it can be used to create your character.
Depending on your dungeon master and the campaign you are joining, you may get to create your character from scratch or you may have a pre-built character with details provided to you.
There are several tutorials on how to create your character from scratch, that you can review if you are not provided with your character details to start with and if you prefer to roll your own rather than use an online tool like that at dndbeyond.
If you are going to be using my character sheet, when you open it up you start typing into the first field and then when you press tab, it will automatically take you to the next logical field that requires entering on the page.
Enter the Main Character Details
- Fill out your character’s full name (my character’s first name is Nala)
- Fill out your character’s race (if you have a copy of the player’s handbook, you may want to add the page reference number next to your race, so if you do need to look something up during game time it is handy).
- Fill in your character’s current experience (you may want to leave this blank so that you can fill it out in pencil and you can then erase it and update your xp when the dungeon master hands out experience points to your party)
- Fill in your character’s class (if you have a copy of the player’s handbook, you may want to add the page reference number next to your class, so if you do need to look something up during game time it is handy)
- Fill in your character’s level (in my example I have also noted the amount of experience points required to get to the next level.)
- Fill in your character’s alignment
- Fill in your character’s background (if you have a copy of the player’s handbook, you may want to add the page reference number next to your background, so if you do need to look something up during game time it is handy)
- Fill in your characters Armour class and Shield Bonus, Nala wears her shield all the time, so her armour class is 16 plus my shield bonus of 2 for a total of 18.
- Fill in your character’s hit points, hit points max and temp hit points (if relevant). You may want to fill these sections out in pencil too, as they tend to fluctuate a fair bit during game play. Your hit point max depends on both your hit dice (which is determined by your character class) and your constitution modifier. When levelling up your character (and creating it) you can decide if you want to roll the hit point dice to determine what your hit points are to start or to level up, or you can select an average for that hit dice and use that each time instead.
- Fill in your character’s speed, this is determined by your race.
- Fill in your proficiency bonus, this is determined by your character class and is +2 for all first level characters. Your proficiency bonus is a modifier that is applied to any numbers on your character sheet that you are proficient in.
- Fill in your initiative, this value is the same as your dexterity modifier, which we will fill out in the next step. (you can calculate your ability score modifier in the following way [example: Nala’s dexterity (ability) score is 12, the modifier is (ability score – 10) / 2 and rounded down. (12 -10)/2 = +1]
- Fill in your passive perception, (I actually think Nala’s is filled in incorrectly after re-reading the rules on this I will be checking when the rest of the humans in my house are awake). Passive perception is 10 plus your wisdom ability score modifier, plus your proficiency bonus if you have proficiency in perception.
- Fill in your spell-casting ability and spell-casting DC and Spell Attack Bonus. (if your character casts spells). Your spell-casting ability is the ability your character uses to cast spells, for my character this is wisdom. Your spell-casting DC (difficulty class) is calculated by adding 8 plus your spell casting ability modifier, plus your proficiency bonus, plus any other applicable modifiers. [For Nala it is 8 plus her wisdom modifier (+3) plus her proficiency bonus (+3). 8+3+3 = 14]. If you are casting a spell that requires you to roll an attack roll to determine if the spell succeeds then you add your spell-casting attack bonus to that roll. Your spell-casting attack bonus is your spell-casting ability modifier plus your proficiency bonus. [For Nala it is her wisdom ability modifier +3 plus her proficiency bonus + 3 so 6]
Enter Ability Scores and Skills
We are now moving on (in my character sheet, your sheet may be laid out slightly differently but the principles are the same)
- There are 6 core ability scores in dungeons and dragons 5th edition, they are: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom and charisma. You can create your own character and will then roll for your ability scores (see links above for resources for this) or in some cases you will be provided with your ability scores by your dungeon master. Each ability score also has a corresponding ability score modifier, based on the base ability score. You can find this table here on roll20.
- I have structured the dungeons and dragons character sheet 5e fillable version in a way that we will first fill in the ability scores, then we will work our way through skills and savings throws related to each ability score afterward.
- Fill in your character’s strength ability score and the ability score modifier. Your character’s strength score describes their ability to naturally move their body and the power they are able to wield with their bodies.
- Fill in your character’s dexterity ability score and the ability score modifier. Your character’s dexterity score describes their agility, reflexes, balance and poise.
- Fill in your character’s constitution ability score and the ability score modifier. Your character’s constitution measures their stamina and general health.
- Fill in your character’s intelligence ability score and the ability score modifier. Your character’s intelligence describes their intellectual ability, memory and analytical skills.
- Fill in your character’s wisdom ability score and the ability score modifier. Your character’s wisdom describes their innate awareness, intuition and insight.
- Fill in your character’s charisma ability score and the ability score modifier. Your character’s charisma describes their confidence, how articulate they are and their leadership ability.
- Skills and Saving Throws – for a skill related to strength (athletics) your modifier for that skill is equal to the ability modifier. Example if your strength is 15, your strength ability modifier is +2, so your skill modifier for athletics which is related to strength is +2. If you have proficiency for this skill or saving thrown then you add your proficiency bonus (you have already filled this out in the previous section). Nala my character is not proficient in athletics, but if she was then her athletics modifier would be 2 + 3 = +5.
- I decided that in my character sheet (you can purchase it below), because all of these skills and saving throws are related to the ability score, that they would be placed in a section for that ability score, it feels like it makes more logical sense to look for my strength skills and saving throw in the strength area. I feel it is not as intuitive in the general layout provided by the default dungeons and dragons character sheet.
- Strength ability skills and saving throw:
- Fill in your strength saving throw modifier
- Fill in your athletics skill modifier. You will be asked to roll an athletics check when attempting to do a difficult manoeuvre involving climbing, jumping or running.
- If you have proficiency in either of these, on my character sheet colour in the saving throw diamond or the skill circle. You can see mine shaded in, in the step 2 image below. (Remember if you are colouring in one of these, you add your proficiency bonus to this score)
- Dexterity ability skills and saving throw:
- Fill in your dexterity saving throw modifier
- Fill in your acrobatics skill modifier. You will be asked to roll an acrobatics check when attempting to not fall over in a tricky circumstance, (think parkour moves).
- Fill in your sleight of hand skill modifier. You will be asked to roll a sleight of hand check when you are attempting to deceive someone with physical trickery, like a card trick, picking a pocket or replacing an item without someone noticing.
- Fill in your stealth modifier. You will be asked to make a stealth check when you are attempting to hide or sneak passed an enemy.
- If you have proficiency in any of these, on my character sheet colour in the saving throw diamond or the skill circle.
- Constitution saving throw:
- Fill in your constitution saving throw modifier
- If you have proficiency in this, on my character sheet colour in the saving throw diamond.
- Hopefully you don’t need to colour in any of your death saves details in here, but in my sheet this this is where you would record that.
- Fill in your hit dice (your hit points are measured with your hit point dice, referred to as hit dice for short)
- Intelligence ability skills and saving throw:
- Fill in your intelligence saving throw modifier
- Fill in your arcana skill modifier. You will be asked to make an arcana check if you are trying to recall anything relating to magic, spells, arcane symbology and planes of existence.
- Fill in your history skill modifier. You will be asked to make a history check if you are trying to recall anything relating to cultural events, wars, legends and history of the realm.
- Fill in your investigation skill modifier. You will be asked to do an investigation check if you are trying to do any Sherlock type things, find and interpret clues, make deductions about things, doing research and so on.
- Fill in your nature skill modifier. You will be asked to make a nature check when trying to access your knowledge about plants, terrain, animals and weather.
- Fill in your religion skill modifier. You will be asked to make a religion check when trying to access your knowledge about deities, rituals and prayer, ceremonies, holy symbols and cults.
- If you have proficiency in any of these, on my character sheet colour in the saving throw diamond or the skill circle.
- Wisdom ability skills and saving throw:
- Fill in your wisdom saving throw modifier
- Fill in your animal handling skill modifier. You will be asked to make an animal handler check when trying to tame, control or placate animals.
- Fill in your insight skill modifier. I think of insight checks as emotional intelligence, this is about whether or not someone is being genuine, their body language or changes in the mannerisms.
- Fill in your medicine skill modifier. You will be asked to make a medicine check when you are trying to stabilise a dying person or diagnose an illness.
- Fill in your perception skill modifier. Making a perception check will determine your general awareness of what is happening around you and the acuity of your senses. This is also used when you are trying to locate hidden objects or detect traps.
- Fill in your survival skill modifier. Survival checks assess your ability to traverse or guide the party through difficult terrain, detect natural hazards, track, hunt or identify local wildlife and avoid nasty weather.
- If you have proficiency in any of these, on my character sheet colour in the saving throw diamond or the skill circle.
- Charisma ability skills and saving throw:
- Fill in your charisma saving throw modifier
- Fill in your deception skill modifier. You will be asked to make a deception check if you are trying to deceive someone, either with blatant lies, misleading or ambiguous behaviour.
- Fill in your intimidation skill modifier. An intimidation check is used when you are attempting to manipulate or convince someone to do something with verbal threats, hostile demeanour or physical violence.
- Fill in your performance skill modifier. You will be asked to do a performance check if you need to delight and entertain an audience with some sort of entertainment.
- Fill in your persuasion skill modifier. Persuasion checks are kind of the opposite (emotionally) to intimidation checks, when persuading you are using positive methods to motivate and influence others as opposed to a more malignant attempt which would be intimidation.
- If you have proficiency in any of these, on my character sheet colour in the saving throw diamond or the skill circle.
Enter Attacks and Spellcasting Details
This section does list your weapons, but it is more about how you are able to use your weapons rather than listing your inventory. This section is displayed in the right side of the Step 1 image above.
- In the top section you enter the weapon, attack bonus, damage amount and damage type. Below the line by line damage for weapons details.
- For each weapon:
- Enter the name of the weapon/attack
- Enter the attack bonus (modifier) for the weapon/attack. Your attack bonus is added to your attack roll when determining if your attack hits your opponent. Generally it is your strength ability modifier for a melee weapon and your dexterity ability modifier for a ranged weapon (there are exceptions). If you also have proficiency in the weapon you add your proficiency bonus to this modifier as well.
- Enter the damage for the weapon/attack
- Enter the type of damage for the weapon/attack
- For each weapon:
- In the section below this also update other details for my weapons. I include information about range for my range weapons, another thing you may want to include is what happens when you use your weapon double handed.
- In my character sheet I also include a summary of your spell-casting details for your character in this section as well. For my cleric character that includes the number of spell slots I have for each level and the number of prepared spells I have.
Enter Features and Traits
Features and Traits are special details about your character due to your character class (features), your character’s race (traits) and your character’s background (features). Some character classes have subsets within the class and you may get special features due to this as well. For some of the features and traits you will have limits to how often you can use these sometimes per day, sometime per long or short rest. I usually write these like this: If I am able to do something 5 times per long rest, I would write 5/long rest and then I also leave enough space to check off how many times I have used this feature or trait between long rests.
- As an explanation for this section, I will be using my character Nala who is a red fire dragonborn cleric as an example.
- Nala gets a breath weapon because she is dragonborn, the type of breath weapon and the details for change depending on your Draconic ancestry. I entered my breath weapon details in this section.
- Also depending on your Draconic ancestry you get a resistance to a certain type of damage, Nala has resistance to fire damage.
- Nala has a special campaign item which gives her some additional resistance, I chose to add that into this section as well.
- Nala is a cleric and they choose a domain based on their chosen deity. Nala’s domain is war. I listed her deity in this section.
- other features due to being a war cleric are included in this section
- War priest inspiration
- Channel divinity, turn/destroy undead
- Channel divinity, war priest guided strike
- depending on your chosen domain you also get some spells that are always prepared over and above your usual amount of spells that you can prepare, I listed those here too.
- other features due to being a war cleric are included in this section
- I also have additional features based on your character’s background, Nala’s background is a wanderer and the features from this background are also listed in this section.
This brings us to the end of page 1 in my four page A5 size printable and fillable 5e dungeons and dragons character sheet.
Enter Inventory and Money
This covers page 2 of my character sheet which includes other proficiencies, tools and equipment, weapons and ammunition, treasure and magic items, story items and coinage.
- Other proficiencies, in addition to the proficiencies we have already filled out for skills and weapon attacks on page 1, this lists additional proficiencies for your character that have not been previously recorded.
- Tools and equipment – enter anything in your characters pack including their clothing in here, other than weapons and ammunition, which are recorded in the next section
- Weapons and ammunition, this section has a different purpose than the weapons listed in the attacks and spellcasting section. Here we are recording what weapons you have and you can also detail how the weapons is decorated and more details about the description of the weapon, rather than just how to wield that weapon. You can also use to track weapon ammunition like arrows and bolts.
- Treasure and magic items is used to list items you have looted or gained during your campaign and particularly for magical items or gems and jewellery.
- Story items, this section is used to list items related to side quests, main quests or the general plot of your party’s campaign.
- Money
- Enter your character’s copper
- Enter your character’s silver
- Enter your character’s electrum
- Enter your character’s gold
- Enter your character’s platinum
- depending on the type of campaign you are playing, whether you are shopping or looting lots, you may want to leave these items for pencil.
Enter character details and spell tracking
This covers page 3 of my character sheet. The majority of the information on this part of the sheet helps with your role playing and describes your character in more detail. This page also contains a spell tracking section for tracking your spell usage.
- Enter your character’s appearance details, in my sheet this includes eye, hair and skin colour as well as age, height and weight.
- List your characters languages
- List your characters racial features, I have already listed this is in my features and traits section, so this section is a bit redundant.
- Enter details about family and friends.
- Enter details about your allies and organisations
- Enter your characters backstory
- Enter your personality statement
- Enter your character’s ideals
- Enter your character’s bonds
- Enter your character’s flaws
- Spell Tracking
- Enter the total number of cantrips available to your character
- Enter the total number of spells your character prepares
- Enter your arcane recovery
- In the arrow shape to the right of each level, enter the number of spells your character prepares for that level. I have created circles for tracking when you use spells in any of the levels. Repeat this for level 1 to level 9. You would want to fill this out in pencil.
This brings us to the last page in my character sheet which is essentially a blank page, you can use this for all sorts of things, digitally it is broken up into 3 columns, you could choose to enter spell details for your most used spells in this section alternatively other things that you want to look up all the time when you are playing that you wish you had at hand. I always want to check how much experience I need for the next level, but have included that in the main character section. You could also record favourite page numbers from the player’s handbook for easier reference rather than transcribing details. I have a set of spell cards that I store in a spell card book for recording the spells that my character has prepared and use, but you could maybe list the spell names and pages from the player’s handbook that describe the spell’s details. You could also record things that you are constantly asking your dungeon master or other members of your party. I always ask how long a round lasts in combat, for some reason this is never stored in my brain but rather cached and deleted between every game session.
If you would like to purchase my fillable PDF character sheet, I have conveniently dropped this massive image and Shop now button below 🙂 Use it (thanks).
A5 Dungeons and Dragons 5E Character Sheet Fillable and Printable PDF
This is a printable and fillable a5 sized PDF Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Character Sheet for a single class character, that can be used throughout a campaign.
It is elegantly styled with minimal embellishments and prints onto an A4/Letter sized paper which you then fold in half into its final A5 size.
The printable 5e character sheet contains the following sections:
- Page …
| 5e | Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition |
| AC | Armour Class |
| ATK | Attack |
| DC | Difficulty Class |
| Dnd | Dungeons and Dragons |
| HP | Hit Points |
| XP | Experience Points |
Hope that this guide on how to fill out a dungeons and dragons character sheet has been useful to you, please feel free to let me know if there is anything I should update, if there are tips and tricks that you would like me to add or just say hi, Hi!.