Things to Remember When Homebrewing...

[Hazkali]

Okay, there have been several posts of homebrewed classes recently that have fallen flat on their faces because the authors forgot to include some simple details, without which we can't really evaluate their classes. So, just before you post a class, please check you have the following things:

• A Class table, a generator for which can be found here
• A Hit die
• A number of Skill Points per level
• A list of Class skills
• The appropriate (Ex), (Su) or (Sp) descriptors for all class abilities
• Some Bolding or Italicising to help us quickly find the descriptors of various abilities.
• A Spell list, if appropriate

If you've got these, then evaluating your homebrew will be a lot easier.

I apologise if this post seems slightly haughty, I just hate the way some pretty good ideas seem to be lost by poor presentation (and yes, I am aware that I have broken some of these before).

That is all.

[DracoDei]

Err.... I guess since you posted this I will mention that I had to fix a few of these a week or so ago when I posted my Master of Life and Undeath... so if people gave it a miss because one or two (actually pretty small given the nature of the class) things were missing then they should go back and look at it again (also I have tweaked it like crazy!).

[Arakune]

This is the most informative post ever.

[littlechicory]

Don't forget to remind people that format and code are available in the first page of the stickied Guide to Homebrewing thread!

[FireSpark]

That generator is a godsend. The time saved by that alone will make posting projects so much the easier.

[Mr.Moron]

A table generator? Neat! I'd been editing mine manually, looks like a time saver.

While we're on the subject of guidelines to home brewing, does anyone know the policy on referring to non open game material?I know the forums can be kind of strict about that kind of stuff, are we allowed to say something like:

Feat: Feat o' Doom
Prerequisites: Feat o' Death (The Big Bad Book 93)
Benefit: On a turn following a turn in which you used Feat o' Death you may spend 2 fun points to use Feat o' Doom causing an additional 2d12 damage on your Blender Attack.

I've been wanting to state how some things interact with stuff outside the SRD, but didn't know if it was OK.

[Maldraugedhen]

...
You didn't know if it was okay to reference material that simply didn't happen to be free?

Also, yay for the Table Generator. I had been editing mine, too.

[Mr.Moron]

...
You didn't know if it was okay to reference material that simply didn't happen to be free?

If this was a standard situation I wouldn't be wary, as the rules

Spoiler

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Posting Copyrighted Content
Posting any copyrighted material without permission is against the rules. Posts containing such content will be edited to remove that content. In particular, posts containing copyrighted material from game books that are not designated Open Gaming Content (OGC) will be edited to remove the copyrighted portions. As an example, mentioning a specific rule item or general mechanic, or explaining in general how it functions, does not violate this rule. However, posting an entire stat block for a monster would. OGC is published under the Open Gaming License. OGC may be reproduced in full, as per the terms of that license. Please keep in mind that material under the d20 License may not be OGC. When in doubt, refer to the primary source to see if there is a copy of the OGL included. Note that any content in the System Resource Document (SRD) can be reproduced as well.

clearly state that general discussion and non-specific functional references are OK. However, as making things that interact with other feats/abilities/skills requires a certain level of detail, it's somewhat different. Simply mentioning a name is obviously fine, but I'm less clear if it's OK to do something like what I outlined in my example:

This [Homebrewed Ability] adds [Numerical Increase] to [Ability from non-open content] of the [Class from non-open content]. It's certainly possible for somebody to infer some of the specific mechanics of copyrighted material from it.

I'm probably being overly paranoid, heh. I was only curious if anyone knew the exact policy on it. The rule as written seems more geared for general discussion than the homebrew forum.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Number one rule of homebrewing:

Someone else has probably done it first.

[StickMan]

I love you for posting that Generator so much. You just saved me a ton of time.

[Hazkali]

I take no credit for the generator, I'm just plugging it. As for the non-SRD query, I have absolutely no idea, but I always err on the side of caution.

[DracoDei]

I don't THINK that what Mr. M is describing would be a problem, but I really have no way to know.