Dungeons & Dragons is a system that mainly focuses on battle. Most of its rules are about it; Most of your class functions make you better in battle, whether it is to cause damage, absorb it, heal or buffalo allies etc., and most articles are also focused on it.

Family
Dungeons & Dragons: Best Troll formulas for creative problem solving
Dungeons & Dragon's magic formulas are good for so much more than just battle. Here are the best magic formulas for creative problem solving.
That said, while we think you should optimize your character for battle a bit, you can also do them well on other things that may come up during the campaign. After all, just because the game focuses on it doesn't mean it's the only thing going on in the game.
If you want your character to be very focused on something other than Strid, we recommend that you talk to your DM about it so that they can make sure your strengths will come up during the adventure. Still, you can do them well on one of these and fight at the same time.
9
Social interactions
Talk you through things
If your character needs charisma for their spell casting, or if you are a villain with decent charisma and you are not sure where to use your expertise, it is a valuable access to a valuable asset. Persuasion, fraud and threats can work in many parts of the game, after all.
You can avoid a lot of battle by talking through enemies, and even if you can let the dice do the job, it is a particularly fun skill to have if you like to play these conversations yourself.
8
Exploration
From wilderness to dungeons
Going to several areas is usually a large part of D&D campaigns – one of DS stands for dungeons, after all. Being able to navigate through a dungeon, understanding and find out its secrets while protecting yourself and others from dangers like traps make a lot of difference.
In addition, if the campaign involves a lot of travel, makes a character that can navigate in these areas significantly. This is also where players learn the value of creating food and water, goodberry or similar things.
With the right building, your character can even have several specializations listed here and in battle.
7
Hunting
Or tracking
Speaking of traveling a lot, you may want to be able to track your food if you miss the magic to do so, or if you want to save money on rations. Thus, it is quite useful to make a character that can hunt and survival.
Still, you can go a step further with this concept and create a character that has an easy time to track goals. You can make a character focused on tracking villains that are more difficult to catch through clues you collected (more about it later), or one of your party members can.
6
Crafts
DIY tool
Whether you extract poison from monsters, do your ammunition or just spike magic objects to existence by being an artifier, being able to do your things is rarely used by players, but you can go a long way with this.
Sure, you can do it well just by buying or plundering what you need, but if you play in a scenario that rely a lot on surviving in dangerous environments (something similar to the grave of Holocaust), it is helpful to make your own objects.
5
Magic
Fireball is not the only magic formula
Now this is a bit vague, to be fair, but magic is too big in D&D so we don't talk about it. Apart from injuries, healing, buffets and debuffs, magic can be very useful outside the battle.

Family
Dungeons & Dragons: The 24 most useful fifth levels, ranked
Anyone who gets to the fifth level in Dungeons & Dragons is probably already an expert, but here are the 18 most useful fifth levels, ranked.
Quite a lot every specialization mentioned here can be done with magic – we even used creating food and water as an example, right? Whether you trust magic or not usually circuits if you think the situation is worth wasting a spell. Anyway, you can go a long way with a SpellCaster that mainly focuses on tool magic.
4
Information collector
Elementary, my dear goblin
We have mentioned how your character can learn through the environment, but since Dungeon exploration is something that requires many different skills (and thus many party members that do different things) you can make your character focus solely on investigating.
Together with the investigative ability (and the perception, for cases), all intelligence -based skills will do wonders for your character here, so that they can match clues with study areas they already have from their background. If you use one of the few classes that rely on intelligence for battle, it is good to cover these skills that your stupid party members will miss.
Rogues can also stand out here if they are good at hiding. They can be powerful spies in this way. Oddly enough, the same applies to druids, as insects can usually go unnoticed in places.
3
Operation
Come where you want
Whether you use athletics or convince your DM to do control with acrobatics instead, it is very useful to have a character that can practically go anywhere on the map. And there are many ways you can do it.
You can climb and help allies through objects like rope. You can use more magic. You can fly. And depending on how you build your character, your choice of species can cover most things, as there are species of climbing speed, such as tabaxis or aerial speed, such as Aarakocras.
2
Strength
You value it when you lose it
Many people can overlook strength as it is an ability point that can easily be replaced depending on your building. If you overlook it, you learn its value when each player makes the same choice, and you play in a party where no one is physically strong.

Family
Dungeons & Dragons: Best classes to start players, ranked
Thanks to countless new media devoted to Dungeons & Dragons, new players participate in daily. Here are the best start classes.
There is a lot of usefulness in just being able to wear things, but even if your DM ignores obstacles or if you have a bag of holding, being able to lift, pressing, pulling or breaking barriers is useful, even if they do not come up as often. Being able to do these things without consuming resources is also a nice plus.
1
Skilled monkey
A little meta, but feasible
Suppose you want to be useful outside the battle. In this case, some buildings revolve around getting many skills skills, so you can be useful on a bunch of random things, even if your ability is not very high on what skill you use.
A character like this can focus on skills that often come up and go after it. You can be good at talking, labeling things, locking and more. Some classes, such as Bard and Rogues, gain many knowledge, and you can also gain expertise, slightly more classes offer in the 2024 player's manual.