Left: Barbarian image from the DND Player's Handbook. Right: Character art made with Bing Dall-E3
For new players, building a character for the first time can seem intimidating. I have experienced this myself, and found myself wishing there were more straightforward resources aiding new players in this. I think the Player's Handbook does a weak job explaining things for new players. Below, I am going to show you a step-by-step process for building a character, using the Barbarian as a template. For all information references, I am using the Player's Handbook 5e.tools.
The Barbarian. This class is loved by many as the most simplistic, damage-inducing class in the fifth edition (5e). Though straightforward and geared toward combat, the Barbarian has some great customizability. This is one of, if not the first class I suggest for new players, especially those who don't want to worry too much about mechanics.
The Barbarian is proficient in light and medium armor, and with shields as well as simple and martial weapons. They get a proficiency bonus to strength and constitution saving throws, and bonuses to 2 skills from Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival. They also get some starting equipment, which we will go through. Your class also helps you determine your Hit Points, which was confusing for me as a first-timer. We will go through this step-by-step below.
Choosing a Race
The list of races in dnd is incredibly long and can be overwhelming. The importance of your character's race comes down to bonuses to ability scores, and extra abilities. For instance, some races like the Aarakocra can fly for certain distances.
The point is to choose a race that gives you bonuses where you want them. For our Barbarian, we want bonuses to things like Strength and Constitution. These will make sure we do damage in battle and have a lot of hit points to back it up. We will be choosing the Half-Orc, as it gets a +2 to Strength and +1 to Constitution. The Half-Orc also gets Darkvision within 60 feet, which is helpful in many situations. Along with this, we gain proficiency in the Indimidation skill and a couple other skills that are helpful in combat - Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks. These will be explained later.
Other good races to consider would be a Mountain Dwarf, who gets a +2 to both Strength and Constitution; Human, Yuan-Ti, Leonin, or, for a Dexterity-based Barbarian, a Stout Halfling. You can always choose race regardless of your class, and that can make for fun role-playing. But for your first play, I suggest going with a classic.
Choosing a Background
Fleshing out Your Character
Rolling for Ability Scores
Armor Class, Initiative, Speed, and Hit Points.
Attacks, Spellcasting, Features, Traits, Equipment.
Leveling Up
Now that Glarch is done, here is our finished sheet.
The only basic things we did not discuss are things like height and appearance, and those are up to you! Obviously, I wouldn't make something like a halfling 9 feet tall, so keep those things in mind. Feel free to use Glarch in your next game.
Thank you for reading, and have fun adventuring!
~ Pete
Links: 5e.tools ; PHB Online ; Fillable Character Sheet