Guidelines for creating new classes?

[rom90125]

I have finally evolved enough in the 3.5 ruleset to begin tinkering. As such, I am asking for your opinion on a good source that details the particulars of creating a new class. Are there general guidelines posted somewhere? In your experience, is there a good source that I can read/review that will help me understand the principles I should follow when creating a new class?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Corsair]

The most important part is deciding what you want to use as a baseline. Do you try to match the druid, or do you want something closer to the poor neglected fighter and sorcerer?

 

[irdeggman]

First you need to decide if what you want is actually a new class or a prestige class. Each has a different purpose and design criteria. Then you need to determine what type of game you are running. For example in a diplomatic encounter style with lots of NPC/PC interaction a bard really shines while a fighter is kind of left behind. IN a dungeon crawl with few interactions the opposite is true. This has a huge impact on what you want/need to do, IMO.


DMG (of course) has some guidelines (pg 174+

DMG II has some good stuff for designing prestige classes which in principle can be extrapolated fro new standard classes (pg 203+)

Savage Species has some good guidelines for when (and what LA) apply to races. Can be useful when trying to ensure things aren't out of whack as the case may be. (pg 10+)

Unearthed Arcana has soem info on variant classes that could serve as a comparison. (47+)

Complete Warrior has a variant ranger and paladin with no spell casting that can also be used for comparision purposes. (pg 13)

 

[Solarious]

Behold, your ultimate codex for designing classes....

 

[marshaldwm]

Behold, your ultimate codex for designing classes....

And a star for coming up with the perfect link at the perfect time.

 

[rom90125]

Thanks to everyone for the fine input. I've been continuing the work started at
Beyond Belief Games of creating a D20 version of The Land, from the Thomas Covenant Cronicles. I'm planning an Iron Heroes campaign set in The Land.