Class / Race Design

[cybersavant]

Hello. I am working on my own world and i have been trying to find guidelines [or rules] on how to create balanced classes and races as WotC has done in the Core books. So, i'll ask: How do you create your classes and races? Is there a system you use? How do you determine which benefits and drawbacks to use?

ANother question that just came to me- what do you think of the idea of drawbacks? Basically penalties or disadvantages to provide more feats, etc without using ECLs.

thanks

B)

[katalia369]

I never did fully comprehend ECL so lets not go there. I just try and balance things out. Honestly all my stuff was written with a basic idea in my mind. So i went and picked all the skills, feats and if applicable spells that applied to that specialized idea. Took out anything that seemed too much to get that easily, and spaced it out with the power stuff at 20 and everything else underneath.

Try not to put more then three or four benefits per level, that limits you some, and just because it would be useful to the class doesn't mean you have to give it to them. Make people get off their tails and tailor it a little on their own. That whole room for personal creativity thing. Also try and find a pattern in it. Examples; a rogue's sneak attack is every other level, a wizards meta-magic is every fifth level and so on.

Thats all i ever did and mine seem to have turned out okay so far.

As to races I never truly tackled those too much,the closest to races I ever created were the half-dwarf and the arctic gnome. Basically for the gnome I just opened the Monster Manual and picked out some ice traits that seemed to suit, I mean hey if its good enough for monsters, good enough for playable characters. Right? For the half-dwarf I just referenced the differences between elves and humans for the half-elf and mirrored them over to the dwarf end of things.

Kat

[Ark]

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