This post is a reminder to myself disguised as a blog post. The reminder will hopefully make things easier in the future.

Sticky Note #1 - What A Class Is

A class is a combination of the following things - abilities, skills, and items. It can be one ability, one skill, and one item, and that's okay; it's still a class. The class, to clearly be a fully-fledged class, requires these three items (according to me), because they cumulatively produce distinct narrative - a narrative of the character linked to the player's class choice.

One ability separate from skills or items is not a class, but a unique narrative experience which has occurred in the past for that character. I will admit several linked abilities is a class, but the barest of bones of a class, and one missing the richness of narrative the other two elements provide. I would personally prefer one ability, one skill, and one item to three abilities.

Sticky Note #2 - What An Ability Is

An ability is something a character can do that other characters cannot because they didn't choose this class.

An ability needs a reason to be exclusive to a class. The question isn't so much, "Why can I do this?" but rather, "Why can't everyone else do this?" If the answer to the latter question is a shrug, it isn't a good ability but rather an ability at odds with the in-game universe (bad). Abilities imply setting and setting often contains the reason Class A can do X and no other class option can. Use them in tandem to produce something greater than its parts.

Sticky Note #3 - What A Skill Is

A skill is something a character does well, but that other characters can also do, albeit worse. It is available to all, but only some have enough expertise in the skill to be good at whatever it is.

Skills should not be exclusive to a class, but different classes should be better at certain skills. The varying levels of skill builds into the narrative of the class and, to a lesser degree than abilities, the setting. Both a wizard and fighter can be good at cooking, and being good at cooking communicates information about the individual wizard and fighter, even if it is never developed beyond "Cooking: Expert".