First of all, I’m glad to see that, after a Red Box panic, Prestidigitation is among the Heroes of the Fallen Lands mage cantrips.

Second, I see that all mages get a new cantrip, Suggestion:

That seems like the sort of nonsense a mage of the Enchantment school would get up to, but apparently all mages are kind of skeevy like that. And wizards wonder why people don’t like them.

Apparently, once per encounter people like them quite a bit. While I like the flavor of suggestion and would definitely rub my hands together giddily at the idea of getting my hands on it virtually for free as a wizard, it does give me some pause.

Already, arcane characters have a lot of amazing ways to use arcana to substitute for many skill checks:

• Arcane Muttering: A level 2 skill power that lets you make an arcana check in place of a bluff, diplomacy, or intimidate check.
• Sorcerous Vision: A level 11 sorceror feat (that a wizard could multiclass into if they were so inclined) that allows you to substitute arcana for an insight for perception check.
• Knock: A ritual that lets you use arcana +5  in place of thievery to open locked doors for the price of 35GP and 1 healing surge.
• Seek Rumor: A ritual that lets you use arcana in place of streetwise to gather information at a +5 difficulty.

Each of these abilities makes me a little nervous, because while I recognize that skills aren’t the biggest focus in D&D, I like the idea of each character having a moment to shine with them (i.e. the rogue opening the crucial lock to break into the house, the ranger spotting an enemy hiding in the shadows, the bard making a clever bluff). It’s kind of annoying to imagine that with a few feats, powers, and rituals an Arcana-heavy wizard or sorceror could be AMAZING at common uses for no less than 8 skills (when you include arcana).

More Essentials thoughts…

A level 10 Rogue utility power from Heroes of the Fallen Lands:

Nimble Fingers
Minor action, Melee 1.
Prerequisite: You must have training in thievery.
Target: One creature
Effect: You draw one weapon that is sheathed or worn (but not held) by the target, stow a single item on the target, or retrieve a single item the target has stowed. If you are hidden from the target, the target is not aware that you have used this power.

The phrase that grabs my fancy is stow a single item on the target. Offhand, I can’t think of a combat use for for stowing a single item on the target, but I’m itching to stow. Rather than a complete tactic, it seems to offer a tactical hint or puzzle – a tactical building block – like my beloved mage hand. I hope some Essentials thief makes Nimble Fingers the cornerstone of an extremely irritating career.

More Essentials thoughts…

The HotFL martial builds (knight, slayer, and thief) have a common schtick for their utility powers: most require training in a specific skill. For instance, the level 2 Knight’s utilities Battle Leader, Glowering Threat, Minor Resurgence, and Push Forward require Diplomacy, Intimidate, Endurance, and Athletics respectively.

I like this idea: it makes my skill choices feel a little less meaningless. Honestly, my dwarven fighter’s Endurance check does not come up that much. I chose it to match my character concept. It’s nice that it might get me an extra utility choice.

Some of the utility choices are executed better than others. Among the level 6 thief utilities, Hidden Blade has a Thievery prerequisite and Slip Aside requires Stealth. All rogues get Thievery and Stealth for free, so this isn’t much of a prerequisite.

Here’s a game: Guess the skill prerequisites for the level 6 Knight utilities, just based on their names. (To see the answers, highlight the section or hit Ctl+A.)

Knight’s Challenge intimidate
Helping Hands healing
Rapid Advance athletics
Dauntless Endurance endurance, good job!

More Essentials thoughts…

Each class chapter is illustrated with some new iconic heroes.

Take a look at the iconics from the Fighter chapter: Lyriel, the elf knight, Fargrim, the dwarf slayer, and Shara, the human slayer. They all have something in common:
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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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The HotFL slayer shares two stances, Battle Wrath and Poised Assault, with the knight, but where they depart, the slayer has some very nice power!

• Berserker’s Charge: It’s hard to imagine not wanting this around for charges (+2 speed and +2 attack). Seems like a pretty solid pick.
  

  Of course, one of the main times you charge is when you’re stunned, in which case you won’t have the minor action to activate this stance. Still. CHARRRGE!

• Duelists Assault: Maybe it’s just me being super greedy, but I can’t pass up damage bonuses like this. It starts at +4 and climbs by 2 each tier. The catch? The target must have no creatures adjacent but you. My feeling is that this is a must have stance for the slayer and is worth seeking out opportunities to take advantage of it!
• Mobile Blade: This lets you move up to your Dex bonus when you hit an enemy with a basic attack. This would be a lot more impressive if it were a shift, but as a move, it likely subjects you to several OAs, which makes it not worth the trouble in my book.
• Unfettered Fury: A -2 to attack for a +4 to damage that increases by two each tier doesn’t seem worth it compared to Duelists Assault and Battle Wrath. I would almost always choose one or both of the other before choosing this one (unless the DM assured me I’d be attacking bulbous, extremely low-AC flesh sacks of hit points for the rest of my adventuring career).
  

  Agreed. This stance screams out “mathematically unsound decision”. But you didn’t hire the Slayer for his math skills.

More Essentials thoughts…

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…

The knight has some pretty interesting at-wills, not the least of which are its totally boss Defender Aura and Battle Guardian power (the replacements for the PHB fighter’s Combat Challenge class feature). Let’s dive right in!

Battle Aura: An aura 1 that gives all unmarked enemies a -2 to attack rolls when it makes an attack that doesn’t include the knight. Not only is it easy to keep track of, it’s unobtrusive: other defenders can mark enemies at their pleasure and the knight will take care of the rest of adjacent enemies. Also, once it’s up it takes no actions to keep going, so it’s totally a fire up and forget ability.

Battle Guardian: Like the second half of Combat Challenge, this power lets you make a free attack if an enemy attacks someone else or shifts away. It’s probably one of the best defender abilities because it’s an opportunity action. It both frees the knight up to use their immediate actions on other powers and lets them take multiple attacks a round if a bunch of enemies decide to ignore them. Much nicer than the fighter and other defenders who are basically spent after their first free attack, letting other enemies run off and attack at their relative leisure. It’s fun to have that kind of firepower, even if it doesn’t come up very often.

Knight Stances: Some fairly interesting/powerful stances, even if brute force will probably end up winning the day. These stances make me excited about playing a warlord again, so I can help the fighter make a lot of extra basic melee attacks!

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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…