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Dungeons and Dragons has won itself a vast fandom. With its five editions and tons of classes, the game is ripe with the chance to build one-of-a-kind characters. Making your character is probably one of the most fun aspects of the game. What is not fun about choosing who you are? Race, backstory, gender, alignment, and goals are all aspects you get to decide. Probably the biggest decision of all though, is what class you chose.
With the five different editions, many classes have been created to choose from. There are core classes that are typical like wizard, bard, and rogue but there are also supplementary or prestige classes like spellslayer, pacifist priest, and samurai. When there are so many classes, how do you choose? Some just pick whatever suits the character they have in mind. Others, however, like to choose based on how useful or powerful the class is in the game. This could take a lot of trial, error, and experience with the tabletop rules, though research can help a lot as well. That's what we're here for!
Updated June 27, 2022, by Gabrielle Huston: Dungeons and Dragons has only risen in popularity since we first published this article to highlight the very best classes in the game! With more people than ever joining in on the fun, it's important that they have a place to research which classes are the best and why.
15 Druid - 3.5 Edition
In the 3.5 edition of D&D, Druids are known to be one of the more powerful classes. What makes them especially good is they scale very well.
You can start out turning into an animal as you run around and the animals you can turn into get more and more powerful as you level up. You can even turn into an elemental, giving your character a huge amount of versatility. Your character’s animal companion levels up with you as well.
In short, the Druid is fun to play out of the gate and stays that way.
14 Revised Ranger - 5th Edition
The Ranger class is unique. The Ranger class in the 5th Edition's handbook was later officially revised by Wizards of the Coast due to complaints about the original class. You can view the new class by clicking here.
This character class is known to be very versatile with a decent number of spells. Outside of combat, even at low levels, they have natural explorer abilities which makes travelling and exploration for the entire party much easier. Examples of these abilities include ignoring difficult terrain and your group can’t become lost except by magical means.
Like a Druid, they can also have an animal companion if they pick a specific conclave. Their proficiencies are in investigation, perception, survival, and animal handling, which is invaluable to a campaign in the wilderness.
13 Cleric - 5th Edition
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Clerics are well-loved since they are one of the oldest classes in the franchise and there have been many versions of them with each edition. They are known to be the best healers in most cases. This makes you an important aspect to any campaign party, since they’ll depend on you to not let them die!
If you don’t just want to heal, that’s okay too because you can also deal significant damage. You’re especially useful at dealing with the undead, as well.
12 Bard - 5th Edition
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If you’re a bard, you can do near anything. You can inspire somebody through words or music and give them bonuses. The big reason to play a bard is the ability, “jack of all trades,” which adds half of your proficiency bonus to all skill checks.
That, plus a variety of spells, makes it so that no matter what is happening, the bard will be helpful. They also double their proficiency bonus on a small number of skills. As a bonus, if you play a bard, you can make fun of someone so much that it physically hurts them.
11 Shadow Dancer - 3.5 Edition
This prestige class is mostly built off of the rogue class and goes a long way towards removing its biggest short coming, which is that it requires party cooperation to be really effective.
Since the rogue is based off of your character not being seen, you would need to separate from the party to use your stealth, or get them to sit down at shut up. Shadow Dancers, regardless of what’s happening around them, can blend into the shadows. Also you get cool shadow-based abilities.
10 Wizard - 5th Edition
Wizards get a large number of spells to choose from, a good amount of daily spells, and they can get spell slots back inside of a day. They have options like getting an interesting familiar to expand what they can do with their magic.
On the 3rd level, they can specialize in a specific school of magic, allowing for a unique experience. Basically there are enough choices that each wizard you might play would each give you a different experience. You could be evocation wizard and shoot lightening in one game and be a transmutation and world the world in another.
9 Fighter - 5th Edition
As its name implies, fighters are good at hitting things. They get many attacks per turn and are versatile with many weapons. One of their subclasses, eldritch knight, even lets the fighter use magic.
They get a lot of HP and can wear the heaviest of armor without being impeded. In the 5th edition of D&D, when you think of a knight in shining armor, that’s probably a fighter. The other subclasses focus on maneuvering yourself and allies in combat to give your team a tactical advantage.
8 Paladin - 5th Edition
The 5th Edition paladin is versatile. They are midway between a cleric and fighter, capable of healing and also frontline combat. They have a few unique spells. Their oaths give them a lot of flexibility for how they act, unlike in the 3.5 version.
Most notably, 5th edition paladins gain access to auras, which give passive bonuses to them and all allies around them. Your party will become braver, stronger, and resistant to magic just because the paladin is standing near them.
7 Dragon Disciple - 3.5 Edition
The draw of dragon disciple is simple: upon taking this prestige class, your character begins to turn into a dragon.
This means you get claw attacks, breath weapon, and damage reduction, everything that makes combat just a little more fun. When you are out of combat, you are still part dragon and who potion seller is going to up-charge a person with claws and fangs.
Also, you can fly! You get wings. A lot of problems can be solved in a campaign by a player who can fly.
6 Bladesinger - 2nd Edition
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This elf-centered class is among the best due to its strong abilities and bonuses. In some cases, the D&D fandom have even said that bladesinger is a “broken” class, meaning that it can be overpowered. Such posts have made many dungeon masters forbid the class, though not all agree that bladesingers are broken.
They get little in terms of hindrance; it's basically just that they can only wear light armor and ALWAYS need to help other elves. Unlike paladins and their oaths though, they do not lose power if they cannot help other elves.
5 Bard - 1st Edition
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Going all the way back to the 1st edition, bards were actually a lot more powerful than in other editions. Some even call the 1st edition bard the first and original prestige class.
They had a lot of special cases for their abilities that contradicted established D&D rules. For example, they could dual class without requiring certain prerequisite attributes. They also gained a d6 HP all the way to level 24 while other classes stopped doing that at about their 9th level.c
4 Archer - 2nd Edition
Archer may have been the best in the 2nd edition exclusively because arrows were so deadly. They easily could become overpowered by getting 5 attacks per round of combat and do a 1d10 damage roll per arrow.
To make matters even crazier, an archer could get a plus 3 to hit and damage if they shot at point-blank range. Even in later editions like in 3.5, after they got rid of the archer class, making an optimized ranged fighter is pretty easy and very viable.
3 Spellwarp Sniper - 3.5 Edition
This is an easy prestige class to take, but you still get good spells out of it. It makes it easier to hide from enemies and surprise them with magical attacks that are harder to resist or dodge. You get sneak attack damage on your spells, which is incredibly good.
Each level of spellwarp sniper provides your character with additional spells per day, meaning you don’t have to sacrifice spells per day as you do with some other prestige classes.
2 Wizard - 3rd Edition
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Like the 5th edition wizard, the 3rd edition wizard was also a well-crafted class. It’s so good mostly due to the same reasons as the wizard in the 5th edition, including a wide variety of spell choices and exclusive items.
There are a total of 8 schools of magic to choose from like conjuration, divination, illusion, enchantment, and necromancy to name a few. Like the later edition, this one could also get its own familiar. So if you are playing 3rd edition, no need to fear, the wizard is still amazing.
1 Dweomerkeeper - 3.5 Edition
Dweomerkeeper is one of the most powerful prestige classes in D&D. One reason is that this class can cast wish and miracle for free several times a day.
Wish is a very powerful spell capable of replicating the effects of most spells. Miracles can do the same thing with other spells such as cleric spells or spells that can bend reality or even raise an undead army.
At that point, you are approaching godhood in terms of what your character is capable of.