Within the world of Mystara powerful beings could rise to the rank of ‘immortals’ and effectively be worshipped as gods by the populace. The difference is that balance is either imbued naturally within the ‘world’ of the game via the rules or is simply a tool that the GM can use rather than an expectation of play. ‘OSR’ style games are typically thought of as not caring about balance however BECMI contains quite specific rules on balancing out encounters and indeed all of the editions contained many forms of internal balance, from the ‘flat’ math to the likes of encounters in Dungeons getting progressively harder the deeper you go. This included rules for balancing out encounters and advice on dealing with players who could now cast incredibly powerful high level spells such as Meteor Swarm which wipe out entire towns on a map or Gate which allowed casters to create portals to other planes. The Masters Set expanded out the stronghold building rules by adding guidelines to managing realms and small empires as well as giving advice to the GM on how to deal with all of these new elements. Alongside that it added more weapons, magical items, spells and monsters to the game. This was an optional sub-system that allowed characters to specialise and grow more proficient in using different weapons within the game, providing a much higher level of detail for those who wanted it. Masters further introduces the ‘weapon mastery’ rule to the game. The Mystic would go on to appearing in AD&D 2nd edition but never quite caught on as a core class, with recent attempts in 5E to introduce the class in Unearthed Arcana falling a bit flat. It introduces the ‘Mystic’ class who were experts at unarmed combat and had special abilities to enhance that power, intended to be inspired by the ‘Kung Fu Master’ trope. The Masters Set allowed characters to rise up to the max of 36th level. The Druid would become an iconic class that is still in the game as a core class to this day. Whilst this could be frustrating at times for a group, or used as a DM to unfairly punish a player, it did give the person playing the Druid or Paladin a lot of flavour to work with. It also forced the player to roleplay in a highly specific way. This would be part of a similar trend in classes that would appear in such as the Paladin, which exchanged more powerful options for effectively roleplay restrictions. If they broke these tenets they’d risk losing their access to Druidic magic. This would gain them access to a new list of Druid spells however come with various caveats such as them not being able to wear metal armour and having to reside within the wilderness and remain ‘Neutral’ in their alignment. The Companion Set would also introduce the ‘Druid’ class from AD&D to basic, an option that Neutral aligned Clerics who specialised in nature deities would get at 9th level. The idea was that once your Fighter got to a high enough level they would be able to construct a stronghold and command armies themselves to defend their lands. This gave detail on running the likes of a castle, from hiring staff members, to guards to defend it, to peasants to toil the land. The Companion set would be the first rules set to present Stronghold rules clearly and concisely. Stronghold play was always in the game from OD&D however the specific details were scattered around various different sources. It introduced new weapons, armour as well as unarmed combat rules and rules for managing Strongholds. The Companion set contained rules for play from level 15 - 25, expanding upon the Expert set which peaked at 14. The Basic Set would be split into a player and DM booklet, mirroring the Players and Dungeon Master Guide format in AD&D. ‘Basic’, ‘Expert’, ‘Companion’, ‘Masters’ and ‘Immortal’īasic & Expert would be further revised editions of the Moldvay Basic and Expert rules. It’s named BECMI as it includes 5 separate sets. In this article we are looking at BECMI launched in 1983.īECMI, compiled by Frank Mentzer and published from 1983 - 1986 is the ‘newest’ edition of the ‘Basic’ series of D&D rules. In the last article we looked at Basic & Expert D&D. In this series of articles we'll be exploring the differences and similarities between every edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
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