What class should you play in D&D? | A Tutorial for all players 

i decided for anyone coming upon this video for the first time (and for myself later on) that i will write down time-stamps 0:00 - 0:20 --Basic intro 0:21 - 0:40 --Names of classes 0:41 - 1:02 --Class category 1:03 - 1:35 --Offensive class 1:36 - 2:01 --Barbarian 2:02 - 2:30 --Fighter 2:31 - 2:56 --Monk 2:57 - 3:32 --Rogue 3:33 - 4:03 --Offensive wrap-up 4:04 - 4:53 --Support class 4:54 - 5:43 --Cleric 5:44 - 6:55 --Druid 6:56 - 7:51 --Paladin 7:52 - 8:44 --Bard 8:45 - 9:31 --Spellcaster class 9:31 - 10:33 --Mystic 10:34 - 11:21 --Sorcerer 11:22 - 12:03 --Wizard 12:04 - 13:01 --Warlock 13:02 - 13:19 --Utility class 13:20 - 14:12 --Artificer 14:13 - 14:42 --Ranger 14:43 - 15:44 --Video wrap-up 15:45 - 15:55 --Black screen w/ music

These classes are for filthy casuals, real D&D players chose to play Halfling Farmers who lost both their arms in their backstory and fight by holding a rake in their teeth!

The four types of characters: 1. Fiteman 2. Good buddy 3. Fireball 4. Other

A necromancer is just a really late healer....

Our party has a first time player. He picked Wizard. He is literally killing it in both the combat and role-play. I'm freaking amazed, dude's a genius.

"Your whole party has got SWORDS and BATTLEAXES and SPELLS that can cast from their HANDS and their WANDS, and you're in the back with a guitar going *DEEDEEDLDEEDEEDLEDEE* and people EXPLODE for some reason." Haha. The bard in a nutshell.

Bard: ok I'm gonna play through the fire and flames *guitar starts literally spitting fire

If you wanna be powerful: fighter If you want something simple: fighter If you want to be versatile: fighter If it’s your first time: fighter If you want to be tanky: fighter If you want to be a damage dealer: fighter

“...rather than doing loads of damage” paladin: *laughs in smite*

"Support classes dont do a ton of damage" >puts paladin in there, literally the king of burst damage

I have a bard character with a magic flute that could make her communicate with animals and plants. But I remember this one time. We were walking through the forest and my character was getting bored. So she plays a random tune and accidentally offends a tree. And the tree smacks our Barbarian. It was hilarious

Clerics and Paladins: Two support classes that, in the accurate words of Jocat, can tank, smite and instill fright.

I've been dying to play D&D for years, and I've finally signed up for my first game this weekend. It's an one-shot homebrew game in which the party will be *only bards.* To say I am pumped is an understatement.

(Playing pathfinder) "Ok guys, what characters do you want to play as?" "Barbarian" "Gunslinger" "Slayer" "Ninja" "...this is going to be a shitshow" And that was the start of the greatest campaign i ever had the pleasure to play in.

Types of classes: 1. "I need healing" 2. "God dammit they died again" 3. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA EVERYTHINGS ON FIREEEEE" 4. "Why does no one ever play us anymore?"

"Clerics, paladins, and bards are support" *_JoCat would like to know your location_*

3:04 *Rouge:* -Offense -Very Easy -Stealth in Shadows -Deal Tons of Damage *_-Murder Stabby Die Die_*

I once played a wild mage and instead of using one, I used a mechanic called the unlucky number. After initiative I would roll an extra d20, then for the rest of the encounter if I rolled that number I activated my DMs custom 1-20 sheet. One time I was fighting an ancient black dragon in my friends home-brew campaign, and I rolled a 13, my unlucky number, and the dragon exploded into a tsunami of gold coins that killed the whole party. We then played another campaign in the same setting and came upon a cavern filled to the brim with gold coins, and five corpses buried in the treasure. That guy was a quality DM.

"Leedlee Leedlee and everything explodes for some reason" -Shakespear

Him: you shouldn’t choose a spell caster as your first character Him: you shouldn’t choose a spell caster of your campaign is going to start in ten minutes Me: creates a wizard for my first ever character for a campaign starting in 15 minutes

The Druid has more spells than the Cleric actually. Druids: 151, Clerics: 116. Not only they have a lot more spells, they also have to learn many forms from the Beastiary. So they have to learn a lot more than the Cleric to be played well. I'd say the Druid is quite more advanced

Necromancer Gnome (tinier halfling) who has a Skeleton carrying him around cause his legs be too damn short to keep up with the party and leaves him quite winded.

Jacob- I recommend playing a offense class. Me- ha ha no. Ima play a druid My DM- Are you sure? Me (Oblivious) - Yes. Me later- oh no.

'and everyone turned into sheep. Even Strahd!' As soon as I can, I am playing Sorcerer and using every unlucky die I can beg, steal or borrow.

So he convinced me to play a bard by his explanation of a bard. I’M PLAYING MY FIRST EVER GAME OF D&D TOMORROW WISH ME LUCK PLEASE

Warlocks aren't hard, you just need eldritch blast, forget everything else you have, just eldritch blast.

"We where playing curse of strad and everyone turned into sheep yes even strad" WHERE IS THIS STORY

"Cleric is a support class" *Laughs in pretty much soloing the BBEG*

Warlocks are wizards that got demon sugar daddies

Are you saying that a party of six Tiefling bards isn't a good idea? But how else will you have a traveling six-piece band?

“Support classes don’t do tons of damage” Tempest cleric: I am a joke to you?

Bard: *plucks single chord on guitar* Horde of Goblins: “We’re about to end this man’s whole career!” Bard: *Guitar Hero starpower guitar riff* Horde of Goblins: *FRIGGIN’ EXPLODES!!!*

This really helped. I can’t decide whether to be a rogue or a bard. Like a rogue would match my personality but a bard would be really fun. I could really see myself in a bad situation just strummin an E Minor and going “We’re all gonna die. We’re all goNNA FRIKKIN DIE! We lose this chase, he’ll eat our face. Please oh frickin why.

"I'm a pacifist character. This will only work for about 3 levels, and then I'll want to kill things." I laughed so hard!!! Thank you so much for this guide. I've been getting into D&D with a group on Discord, and we've been having a lot of fun with mini campaigns, but I never know which character I want to play. This helps a lot.

I had a warlock character once that made the pact because he was scared of the dark Like he was scared, so he decided "I'mma befriend whatever's in there, so it doesn't want to hurt me" So yeah, pretty much everything after he got Devil's Sight was just to stay on his darkness buddy's good side The best one shot ever

My first character was a paladin i tried to roleplay him as a « good » « mercyfull » dude... I play rogue now...

*Offense* 1:05 Barbarian 1:38 Fighter 2:02 Monk 2:32 Rogue 2:55 *Support* 4:04 Cleric 4:54 Druid 5:44 Paladin 6:56 Bard 7:52 *Spell caster* 8:46 Mystic 9:32 Sorcerer 10:35 Wizard 11:23 Warlock 12:04 *Utility* 13:02 Artificer 13:21 Ranger 14:14

I want to play a bard who only plays meme songs in chip tune All star and then oh shit everything’s on fire wtf

Jacob: they can use a weapon and shield Jocat: whomst has summoned the ancient one

I would like to play as a bard barbarian that's species is a orc that literally starts singing heavy metal mid battle

Gotta love being a heavily armored gnome with a six foot spear

Everyone: Use a non-magic user first, It's good Me: Pfft... Don't underestimate me Me 1 week later: AAAAAA WHAT IS THIS OR THAT?

me a first time player: oh cool rangers have animal buddies!!:D Rangers: *A D V A N C E D* me to myself: *RANGERS HAVE ANIMAL BUDDIES*

"If you put Druids and Babarian together..." So... basically a Totem Barbarian?

This is a very good guide for beginners to choose what class to play.

Recommends new players stick to something simple that doesn't use much magic. What do I do? I go straight for the druid class with 9 levels of spells to deal with lol. To be fair I mostly use beast shape and eat people's faces as a bear, fun times.

As a Druid, I unintentionally became the most powerful and important character in our group in the Curse of Strahd Campaign (5e). I chose the Circle of the Moon (Feral/Guardian for WoW players). 1. I ended up locking down and forcing enemies to separate with Moonbeam, which also deals an enormous amount of damage (by far the things we faced the most were vampires and werewolves, so they have disadvantage on the save). 2. My animal form attacks counted as magic damage, plus the massive health pool the shapeshifting gave me allowed me to tank, which was especially helpful one session when both our Fighter and Barbarian couldn't make it (my DM allowed me to upgrade the basic direwolf template to higher CR ratings when my level would allow me, which was pretty awesome of them). 3. While we had a Bard, I ended up being the healer as they preferred to smack things with their banjo. And since I only really needed to cast Moonbeam once during an encounter, I could then be constantly switching between my forms and either be healing or dealing damage. So yeah, Druids can be whatever the heck you want them to be in that game. It's pretty awesome.

Druids are the clutch character. I can remember so many early-game combat encounters where a miniboss or boss had us on the ropes and a Circle of the Moon Druid transformed into a bear to save the day.

When I first heard of D&D my friend told me to be a druid cleric. No. No, he was not joking. Nor was he talking about multiclassing.

Everyone turned into sheep... even straud” I died 😂😂😂

The content was *excellent* and really helpful to me - but also, THANK YOU for not cutting the music off and either letting it fade out or just get quieter at each transition. I can't tell you HOW many creators just do a hard stop, and it really grinds my gears for some reason; it was really satisfying to have a video whose soundtrack was varied but felt continuous.

I just got the mayonnaise reference. "So what happened to the mayonnaise?" "I ate that too"

Bards aren't necessarily easy to play. It depends on the type of player and DM. If you don't know how Bards play, talk to your DM about what they'll expect, specifically regarding one of your main abilities, Vicious Mockery. The description says "You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature you can see within range," and it's a cantrip, which means you can cast it as much as you want. Some DMs or groups may expect the player to actually say an insult every time they cast it. If you don't feel comfortable improvising an insult at some goblin or bandit you know nothing about, make sure your party knows that. That type of improv can be very stressful for some people.

Base D&D has always put an emphasis on combat. Not just action but combat. A joke made in this video points out that in the player handbook the only way to gain EXP is killing stuff or helping characters kill stuff. Game Masters who promote storytelling among players may Level Up the party at milestones. Murder-hoboism breaks suspension of disbelief. Besides, it sucks when you actually defeat a difficult boss worth 2800 EXP only to fall short of 3000 EXP required to Level Up. For my fellow Game Masters out there; reward players based off roleplaying creatively. Otherwise the rules incentivize murder-hoboism.

I was so anxious the moment you said "hey damage dealer for new player!" And i was like 'But i wanna be a musician!' Than the supportive classes came up and most of em were for a little bit experienced players and i thought 'please let bard be easy or very easy' The moment your first sentence came up which was explaining bard i thought "YES BABY MUSIC!!"

Me: Trying to learn about the game so I can play it at some point. Wants my first character to be a Kenku Cleric. Jacob: No. Just... Just no.

I also have four categories that I put the classes in D&D into but mine are different. 1) Primary Martial - Paladin, Fighter Barbarians 2) Auxillary Martial - Monk, Rogue, Ranger 3) Support Caster - Cleric, Druid, Bard 4) Primary Caster - Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock* 1) Primary Martial classes get into the thick of things, they deal and can take a lot of damage. 2) Auxillary Martial classes do a lot of damage but are not as well equipped to take a punch so do best when they have a primary martial character to tank for them. Tend to duck in and out of combat or fight from medium or even long-range because of it. 3) Suppor Caster classes are capable of doing some damage with spells but their class abilities and spell lists revolve around buffs and healing and shine if that is what they focus on. 4) Primary Caster classes can do tonnes of damage with their spells but can also bring utility to the table outside of buffs. They excel at solving out of combat problems. *Warlock is considerably weaker than the two other classes in this group when it comes to spells but certain Eldritch Invocations are quite powerful and may make up for their shallow spell selection.

This is actually informational. Unsubbed.

yo, im pretty new to dnd and your videos are BY FAR the best explainer videos. very easy to understand. i feel like i understand the basics a lot better by watching your videos than reading the basic handbook. hats off to you

It's hard to pigeonhole each class into "types" because 5e is very versatile. You can do things like create a hexblade warlock who's mainly a melee combatant that happens to have have spellcasting on the side.

Me and my friends were in a fight with guards at pretty much the start of the game Me friend didnt bother to properly use his guitar he starts to use it like a bat He aims for the guards legs but he misses and hits a kid in the face He was getting a 2 or a 3 every turn

I would like to make an amendment to this (something I've said repeatedly and will continue to repeat): Paladin's are a righteous knight driven by a sacred oath, while *some* swear their oath in the service of a god a paladin's first and *only* concern is to their oath *not* a deity. Remember, paladins are knights not priests. If you want to play the servant of a god, play a cleric not a paladin. If you want to be a knight in the vein of Prince Valiant or Sir Gawain (not beholden to any deity) play a paladin. Remember druids are divine casters yet people don't assume they're a god's servant, paladins should be seen the same way.

This was a really helpful video, nice to go into detail on all of the classes, and I'm currently helping my partner get in to the game - this was very helpful for her! Cheers!

Warlock is my favorite class (in 5e, that is). I love the concept of the warlock and the idea of trying to serve your patron as well as helping your party to reach their goals and it can make for some interesting character development as you try to maintain the balance between your obligations to your party and your patron. Gameplay-wise, they are also unique and fun and get a lot of cool special abilities unique to them and, warlocks are very customizable. For all those reasons, warlock is my favorite 👍

My bard is the main DPS for my team right now lol Why did my party do this to me

Too be fair, all the support classes can be used as tanks or offense if you build them right. Circle of the Moon works well to tank a lot of damage via Wild Shape. Divine Smite can do a LOT of damage at later levels. But I get that it's for beginners/people that are rusty and just a basic overview. Side note: Paladin's in 5e don't technically have to follow a god. The Oath can just be a personal one. Side side note: There's a really nice homebrew for Artificer that improves it immensely, adding more archetypes. Though Gunsmith is still underwhelming.

This and the other videos specifically about monks helped me decide to go with monk for my first campaign, and I'm super happy that I did!! Even though I felt like I was going in with a pretty solid base knowledge of the game, there was a lot that I still had to learn hands on and starting with a class that basically just knows how to punch things at the start really helped me out! So in short - I know you get a lot of flack for it, but thank you for suggesting monk as the best class for first time players!

I agree that Rogues are fun and easy to play. When I first started playing D&D, I played a rogue, and it was lots of fun to try and get sneak attack, even if I misunderstood a few rules. For example, I didn't know that when I was hidden, I had advantage on my next attack, so I just hid to not be attacked. I also misread the sneak attack rules, and thought two enemies needed to be within 5 feet of each other to sneak attack. However, it was still lots of fun.

This convinced me to play a Druid in my next campaign, I usually play Clerics or Paladins (I love healing my party like 'GOD LOVES YOU,*smacks* here's some hit points back') but Druid sounds fun!

Now, this is VERY accurate when you're just gonna go with a hack n slash playstyle. However, this does fall off when you actually start get a really in-depth look into the classes... (Like how you can do a 3-level dip into fighter to make a paladin into a fighting machine whose smited attacks dunk enemies out if existence 10% of the time) But at that point you've probably read the whole Player's handbook five times MINIMUM so why the hell are you here? 11/10 pretty damn useful for anyone who doesn't have the spare time to read the Player's Handbook 17 fucking times out of boredom

Loved the simplistic breakdown of the 4 groups, making it easier to see how a group can do well with a good mix.

me: choses druid for my 1 dnd session dnd: so you chose death

I tend to group the classes in a different way to how you've done it here: Front Lines (Barbarians, Fighters, and Paladins), Damage (Rangers, Monks, and Sorcerers) Spellcasters (Wizards, Clerics, and Druids) and Versatile (Mystics, Bards, Warlocks, Rogues, and Artificers). Front Lines take the brunt of the attacks; Barbarians have a lot of health, Paladins have a lot of armor, and Fighters have a lot of ways to draw enemy fire. Damage aren't as tough, but make their marks on their enemies; Rangers have tons of damage dice, Monks have tons of attacks, and Sorcerers have powerful spells. Spellcasters are more able to control the battlefield; Wizards have a ton of spells, Druids have a lot of AoE attacks, and Clerics are focused mainly on support spells. Versatile have a lot of ways to specialize; Rogues are fantastic at certain skills, Mystics have different psionic talents and orders that enhance their abilities, Bards are Jacks of all Trades, Warlocks have a ton of options for finely-tuned customization, and Artificers are great with tools. This is also a great way I differentiate difficulty to play; Front Lines tend to be the easiest to play, followed by Damage, Spellcaster, and Versatile. Every rung on that ladder gets more difficult, but more customizeable; harder to play, better for making exactly the character you're looking for!

Classes Described by my DnD party Barbarian: I threaten the prisoner for information using my fire axe! Monk: I quit threatening them with my axe and invite them to the party Cleric: Yikes making this guy seems a bit to complicated can I change class? You're already in to deep and we really need a healer. Druid: I use my owlbear! Bard: how many people can I kill with this 15 ft. Cone? *15 min of discussion pass trying to hit the enemies and not the druids owl bear. Alright I cast it! Artificer: I use my gun! Backfires horrendously and is now forced to fight the beholder in hand to eye ray combat

Oh wow thank you! I'm preparing a character for my first ever campaign and you did a very good job of explaining it clearly so that I know what to chose from without to much detail.

I'd like to say a heartfelt thank you, I'm really glad that I've found your channel. For almost 20 years I play and gamemaster Shadowrun and Vampires: the Masquerade, and now my children want to play D&D. I ordered the core book, but of course they don't want to wait for the book to arrive and we'll start playing tomorrow. Ooookay. 😅 After listening to your race and class vids I've got at least an idea of what we'll be doing, and I will dust off some events, locations and enemies from my old LARP days and turn that into our first adventure. Wish me luck. 🏹🗡🌳

My only criticism is that I would have put paladin in utility. Depending on what oath/path you take, you can heal and buff the team, take lots of damage, dish out lots of damage, while still casting spells.

When I saw you put paladin in support I was like oh hell na! But then when you described them I was like wow this guy knows his shit. Fantastic sound effects! Subscribed!

two teifling bards show up in the tavern bard 1: "well one of us is going to have to change"

If I ever find a group to play with (why is it so hard hngggggg) I would definetly play a bard and be the biggest troll ever. "Want some inspiration? Ok, here's wonderwall!"

Clerics do more than heal. I litterally hit people with a fucking flaming sphere the size of the room. Clerics can heal and can do damage and can tank. Over all of just depends on their specialty

Nice video! I agree with a lot of the stuff that this video covers, but I do have some grievances and suggestions. Some of the classes had their subclasses briefly covered, and some did not at all. The subclass adds a lot to the function and complexity of a class, and should be briefly covered for every class. What is the scale for difficulty? Is Hard more difficult than Advanced? A more linear or defined scale might help for clarification. In my opinion, Barbarian and Fighter are "very easy", while Monk and Rogue are "easy". Barb and Fighter can be the easiest classes to play (Bear Totem Barb, Champion Fighter), while Monk and Rogue have more to manage (Monk has a resource and action economy management, Rogue has skills and positioning). I would be careful putting Bard down as "easy". "Medium" would be more fitting in my opinion, as spells tend to make everything more complex by just existing. The Mystic and Ranger parts were good warnings. Mystic is quite the hill to climb, but once you understand them it's a blast. And oh god yes PLEASE use the Revised Ranger in Unearthed Arcana, unless you enjoy playing the weakest class in the game by a lot. Overall though, great video! Just needs a bit more consistency to be a great reference!

Dude, your channel is pretty sweet. I want to learn D&D, and you have a really good way of explaining. Thanks for the video!

This was extremely helpful!! I have not played D&D yet but I do watch and listen to a couple groups/podcasts, and I hope to play for real soon. Have a lot to learn!

Ive found that Rangers are the best class to play first time around. They’ve got capabilities to be avid fighters, spell-swords, or even sneaks. And those are decisions you have to make at 3rd level so you can get a feel for the game before you sink into deeper options. On top of that lots of beginners here “you can have an animal” and attach to that as it’s probably the easiest thing to role play: I like animals.

As a Bard, can we throw the guitar?

Thanks for all these great videos, it's def helping me get started.!

Revisited this after a few years, the vid is still an amazing guide I share around with new players

I banned mystics after mine just basically derailed the game and became the "Protagonist". Enemy to hard, teleport away. They also literally can do everything: Damage, heals, utility, CC, "Tank". My player was like this class is so lame I feel leagues stronger than my allies and can do everything so I told him hey lets make a plot device to change his class and so we did.

Okay, got it, I'm gonna make an adventure for 2 tiefling bards!

Thank you so much! I'm running a mass session for a BUNCH of new players and if this helped me out a lot and I'm sure it will help them! Thanks again and I love your hair!! :)

I love this video! You look like you're still in middle school! Your earlier videos are fantastic. I know I've played D&D forever but I still found this video to be useful and helpful when guiding my small children into a class that they might prefer. You should totally make a comedy sketch about how you did your earlier videos or something it might be funny. Keep up the great work! Love the channel and love the content!

"Cleric is a support class" Look at Guiding Bolt. I believe it is the strongest 1st level spell.

I love this channel and require more

I feel a bit proud to be playing as a cleric for my very first DnD campaign. Your video was very fun. Thank you!

I love being a druid, and just constantly being a mammoth. I LITERALLY NEVER DIE.

Love your vids. I watched them all. Not I wait for more. Seriously, though, another video like this for Player Races and I could direct people to those two videos for character creation. I love your style.

Human Fighter. Always choose Human Fighter. There's never enough of them.

I love how coming back to this, Jacob has completely shifted his view on mystics

very charismatic dude... love your videos.. keep on doing them. TY 4 your work