After some strange experiments among the 4e Player’s Handbook classes, WOTC settled down and mostly published Dual Ability Dependent (DAD) class builds – ones that required a strong primary ability for attack rolls and damage, and a secondary ability that provided bonuses for various class features and powers. Most of the Heroes of the Fallen Lands classes follow this pattern.

The thief is an odd exception:

Ability Scores
Determine your ability scores (page 38), ensuring that Dexterity is your highest score. […] Strength and Charisma are also important to a thief, so consider making one of them your second-highest ability score.

At first glance, the Thief looks like a MAD (multiple ability dependent) build, since it has powers that reward both Strength and Charisma. On closer inspection, the thief is actually pretty SAD (single attribute dependent). There are no class powers that use Strength or Charisma. Strength and Charisma are used in a bare handful of optional at-will tricks and utility powers, none of which dazzle me.
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The Knight and Slayer fighter builds are presented in separate sections of Heroes of the Fallen Lands, and have very little in common. They have different armor proficiencies, different powers and even different roles. Here’s what they share:

Of the at-will stances, Slayer and Knight share Battle Wrath (+2 to damage) and Poised Assault (+1 to attack).

Both Knights and Slayers get the Power Strike encounter power feature.

Of the Level 2 utility powers, Knight and Slayer share Minor Resurgence (gain 5 temporary HP when bloodied) but the other 3 choices differ. (Since all these utilities are labeled “Fighter Utility 2”, can a Knight take one from the Slayer section and vice versa?)
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PHB fighters choose either a +1 bonus to one- or two-handed weapons, which is BAD. A fighter with a +1 to two-handed weapons will forever disdain one-handed weapons. I’d like fighters to be the most versatile weapon-using class.

Essentials Knights have a +1 to all weapons, which is GOOD.

Essentials also have a class feature called “Weapon Specialization”:

Level 7: Weapon Specialization
You gain one of the following benefits of your choice.

Bladed Step: After you use power strike with a heavy blade, you can immediately shift 1 square adjacent to an enemy. You then gain combat advantage against that enemy until the end of your next turn.

Staggering Hammer: When you use power strike with a hammer and the target is adjacent to you, the target is also immobilized until the end of your next turn or until you are no longer adjacent to it. You also gain combat advantage against the target until the next turn.

I like the fact that a hammer-using knight feels different from one with a sword. Making the fighter’s choice of weapon meaningful is GOOD. But making that choice permanent is BAD.

The simple fix is to give both of these abilities to any knight. The meaningful choice will be made, not at level 7, but whenever the knight draws a weapon.

I’m all for letting fighters bathe in the glory of having mastery over two or more types of weapons. However, simply allowing both of these specializations won’t quite do the trick. You’ve also got the feat hump, where expertise and weapon focus will make them lean one way or another, so those would need to be houseruled.

Agreed, which is why expertise and weapon focus are BAD.

More Essentials thoughts…

Traditionally built classes start with one encounter power at level 1 and reach a maximum of 4 at level 11. Heroes of the Fallen Lands fighters start with one encounter power, “Power Strike”, and pick up multiple uses of that power until they reach 4 at level 13.

Power Strike: Free action.

Trigger: You hit an enemy with a melee basic attack using a weapon.

Effect: The target takes 1[W] extra damage from the triggering attack.

Level 17: 2[W] extra damage.

Level 27: 3[W] extra damage.

Power Strike lets you apply extra damage to a successful basic attack. The total damage from a Power Strike-enhanced basic attack is about equal to the damage from a regular encounter power.

Basically, while regular classes get 4 encounter powers, with varying extra effects, fighters get 4 copies of the same simple encounter power. It doesn’t have any extra effects, but it can’t miss either.

Having 4 power strikes is pretty fun, though they definitely are a bit underpowered compared to some other notable fighter encounter powers. This is mitigated somewhat by the fighter weapon specializations that add some nice effects when power strike is used. The coolest of these are probably the knight and slayer hammer and axe specializations, which immobilize and knock the target prone respectively.

More Essentials thoughts…

HotFL offers more advice than the 4e PHB on race/class combinations, descending (gasp) into CHARACTER OPTIMIZATION ADVICE!

Here’s what the PHB has to say about cleric player races:

Humans and dwarves make ideal clerics. Elves, half-elves, and dragonborn are good clerics too, but they rarely have the same values of piety and reverence found in many human and dwarven cultures. […] The race you play and the deity your character worships have little effect on your cleric’s ability to utilize divine powers.

HotFL, on the other hand, has a full page about dwarf, elf, and human clerics, with comments like “Dwarves are a natural fit as warpriests, since they can gain a bonus to both Wisdom and Constitution.” The book also claims that there’s a long tradition of elf clerics, and “elf warpriests are instrumental in defending their people and the allied races of the mortal world.” If that’s the case, why don’t I see more elves in church?

Because elf warpriests are too busy adventuring and bathing the lands in the blood of undead, goblins, and undead goblins to ever step foot in a church, save perhaps to beg some fellow holy man (or woman!) to resurrect a buddy before hitting level 8 and being able to do it themselves.

Really? Too busy adventuring? Because I notice they find plenty of time to dance about trees.

More Essentials thoughts…

Essentials classes don’t get the Ritual Caster feat, and there are no rituals in Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Arguably the most important rituals, Raise Dead and Enchant Magic Item, are dealt with in other ways.

Enchant Magic Item is dealt with by not letting PCs enchant magic items. Most magic items are now “uncommon” or “rare”, which means they “are not usually created in the current age of the world”, and the book assumes that “common” magic items are created by NPCs.

Raise Dead is replaced with the 8th level Warpriest class feature, Resurrection, which is pretty much identical, except that

• it can only be cast on someone who died in the past 24 hours (as opposed to a month for Raise Dead).

• the death penalty (-1 to all rolls) can be eliminated by 3 milestones or 3 extended rests, which means you can sleep it off; you don’t have to adventure it off.
• Instead of costing thousands of GP, it’s FREEEEEEE!
  

  That definitely takes the sting off of dying, especially in the early levels of a tier. 500 gold isn’t much to a level 10 character, but to a level 1 character it’s a small fortune! Similarly, 5,000 gold is a big hit to a level 11 party. One thing I do like about this is that there’s less incentive for people to make new characters when they die, something that I’ve had some trouble with in my campaign.

  Create Water might not have been a ritual, but it should have been. This is now an encounter power available to the storm domain! Crazy and actually pretty powerful. Imagine if you could walk into any desert and start pumping out a gallon of water every five minutes. You and your party would certainly never go without! Unfortunately, Dark Sun is the only campaign world in which this would be super useful, and there are no clerics in Dark Sun.

More Essentials thoughts…

HotFL presents the class chapters first, followed by race. This is a reversal for D&D: since First Edition, race has been chosen first.

In 1e, race followed by class made sense. Races imposed attribute bonuses, penalties, minimums, and maximums. Classes, on the other hand, had strict entry requirements: for instance, you needed a 17 CHA to be a paladin, and with a 5 or lower CON you could only be an illusionist. Until you applied the racial modifiers, you didn’t know what classes you qualified for. (It was, of course, perfectly possible to roll up a character who didn’t qualify for any classes.)

This order lasted long after the 1e restrictions were gone. As late as the 4e PHB, players have been asked to choose race first:

from the 4e PHB:
Follow these steps to create your D&D character. You can take these out of order; for example, some people prefer to pick their powers last.
1. Choose Race. Decide the race of your character. Your choice of race offers several racial advantages to your character. Chapter 3.
2. Choose Class. Your class represents your training or profession, and it is the most important part of your character’s capabilities. Chapter 4.

It’s a little bit insane that this was still the order in 4e. I think most people choose a class first, and then pick a race that complements it. I’m sure there are some people out there who are happy to play any class, as long as it’s an elf, but I haven’t met them.

2nd edition had a similar format, though some of the classes had laughable requirements like 9 strength (to be fighter). But with 3E on it really didn’t make any sense. In fact, even in 1st and 2nd edition, I almost never picked my race first. I would usually look at the classes and then pick a race that allowed me to qualify for the class that I wanted based on the stats that I rolled.

More Essentials thoughts…

The first thing I notice about the Warpriest is that it’s not really one build; it’s a bunch of builds, one for each divine domain. The domain makes a huge difference to a warpriest: about 13 powers, including the cleric’s at-will powers, and several class features are determined by the domain.

Only two domains, Storm and Sun, are listed in Heroes of the Fallen Lands. This marks out plenty of room for further expansion, which is a good sign for 4e.

As a player, I want access to all the domains now. I want the complete warpriest! In the economic model of D&D, though, “complete” means “dead”. 4e relies on the developers continuing to dole out new material. When they can’t think of any more stuff to dole out, there’s nothing left to do but make a new edition!

For reference, here are the domains listed in 4e’s “Divine Power”:

arcana, change, civilization, creation, darkness, death, destruction, earth, fate, freedom, hope, justice, knowledge, life, love, luck, madness, moon, poison, protection, sea, skill, storm, strength, strife, sun, torment, tyranny, trickery, undeath, vengeance, war, wilderness, winter

It will take a while to flesh out each of these with class features and powers. And even when the Warpriest build has been completed: WOTC can introduce a new build and start again! May I humbly suggest PEACE PRIEST

More Essentials thoughts…

Listen, guys, I’m bumping my Monday Mazes and Monsters article again for Essentials liveblogging. I promise I’ll get back to Mazes and Monsters soon. To make up for it, I will illustrate this post with inappropriate Mazes and Monsters screencaps.

I was excited when the Red Box made me roll a d6 for my bonus language. In Heroes of the Fallen Lands that roll is now optional, and it’s a d20 roll:

1-2 Deep Speech
3-5 Draconic
6-9 Dwarven
10-13 Elven
14-16 Giant
17-19 Goblin
20 Primordial

Fun! The different weights assigned to different languages is like an adventurer census. There are 4 times as many adventurers who speak Elven as Primordial. Giant is slightly less popular than Elven but still popular: after all, it’s SO frustrating when you can’t decipher what the orc is saying*. 10% of adventurers are weirdos who took “Mind Flayer as a Second Language”.

If I were making the chart, I’d probably have 1 be “Sheltered! no bonus language” and 20 be “Polyglot! Roll twice more”, but maybe that’s just the 1e in me!

*Don’t worry, I will translate. The orc is saying, “Attack them, you fools!”

More Essentials thoughts…

The ability score guidance in HotFL is greatly improved from the Player’s Handbook.

The PHB method

The Player’s Handbook non-advice is like some cruel test designed to cull the weak from the herd. Method 1 of PHB ability score generation is to take the “standard array”, 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, which is just an awful arrangement of abilities. Method 2 is a point buy. Along with the point buy rules is a chart of no less than FIFTEEN sample point-buys, arranged approximately in order from worst to best. For example, the first point buy array is 14, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, which is an array that should come with a cyanide pill.
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