Class Yays and Nays

This covers design errors that are often made. Some of these are conventions (e.g. "round-counting" doesn't break the game but is at odds with 5e design philosophy), whilst others are just wrong.

## Terminology

* Class Features are "Features", not "Abilities" or "Skills".
* Strength, Constitution etc are "Abilities", not "Stats". "Statistics" refers to all the game numbers of a game entity.
* "Hit Points" - not "Health" or "Life".
* Class names are (usually) not proper nouns.
* Feature names and Sub-Class names are (usually) proper nouns.
* Spell names are in lower-case italics.

## Class Features

### Recharge

* Wrong: *"before needing to take a short/long rest"*, *"between short/long rests"*, *"per short/long rest"* - the exact recharge point is ambiguous.
* Correct: *"You need to finish a short/long rest before you can use this feature again"* - clearly states when you get the feature back.

### Targeting

* Features and spells can target "creatures", "creatures you choose", "friendly creatures".
* While creatures can have a "hostile" attitude towards you, you would normally use the phrase "creatures you choose" to avoid ambiguity.

### Duration

* Do use the standardized durations: 1 round, 1 minute (the length of one combat), 10 minutes (one "exploration phase"), 1 hour, etc.
* Do allow a creature to repeat a saving throw for applying effects on enemies for an indeterminate length.
* Don't use round-counting, e.g. "lasts for 3 turns", or "1d4 turns". If you must have a variable length, consider using a d6 recharge (the method used in the Monster Manual)
* Don't have features that last for the duration of the "combat" or "encounter", as this is not defined (but see "1 minute" duration above); similarly do not have "at the start of combat/encounter" (but you could have something trigger on an initiative roll).

### Action

* Don't forget to say how the feature is *used*. Is it an action, a bonus action, a reaction? Is it triggered on another action, or does it work in a general (non-combat) way?

### Damage-For-Benefit

* Be careful with Features that grant you a benefit if you take damage, as it's trivial to arrange to be damaged by a willing player or Non-Player Character.
* Do have the benefit only work against the creature that caused the damage.

### Regaining Hit Points

* Be careful not to disrupt the hit point economy of using hit dice to regain hit points during a short rest. These examples allow a character to regain all their hit points too easily:
	+ Don't have unconditional regeneration.
	+ Don't have anything "count as" a long rest.
	+ Don't have at-will "cure" effects.
* DO use temporary hit points.

### XP and Treasure

* Don't make features that change the way XP, gold, or treasure is granted. These rewards are entirely the purview of the Dungeon Master.

### Feats

* From WoTC: "...never assume that a particular Feat will be a part of the game. For instance, a class can't refer to a Feat and Feats should never be granted as Class Features."

### In General

* Do give your Class Features to help with combat, exploration, and interaction
* Do think of new Class Features rather than copying Features considered unique to a particular class (e.g. the Barbarian's Rage)
* Don't make your class concept too narrow. Particularly when adapting a character from another work of fiction, don't tailor the class to fit that character exactly: pull back and consider a broader scope with options that could make that character.
* Don't have negative features that punish players for picking a certain class.

### Other

* Don't invest a lot of writing in describing the effects of edge cases that might never crop up. For example, in one class, I saw a big paragraph about what would happen if they cast a spell without using their focus. Such a situation is a rarity. It would be better to keep the effect of that situation simple, so the class isn't cluttered with nonessential information.