Dungeons & Dragons Companion Set

• 1. Introduction

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  The Dungeons & Dragons Companion Set arrived in 1984 with an unusual promise: your character has killed every monster in the Monster Manual, collected every magic item in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Now what? That was the question Frank Mentzer set out to answer when he sat down to write the third in a planned series of five boxed sets expanding the revised D&D rules. The set picks up where the Expert Rules left off, pushing characters from level 15 all the way to level 25. But getting to those heights unlocks a different kind of problem. A character at level 15 is no longer a wandering adventurer scrabbling for coins. They are a political force, a military commander, a landowner with castle staff to pay. The Companion Set had to become, in part, a rulebook for an entirely different kind of game. What the two booklets inside that box actually delivered, and whether they delivered it well, is a story worth telling.

• 2. The Mentzer Revision

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  Frank Mentzer took on the task of revising the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set in 1983, and what began as a single rulebook revision became something far larger. Between 1983 and 1985 he produced five separate boxed sets, each covering a distinct band of character levels. Basic Rules handled the earliest levels. Expert Rules stretched from level 4 through 14. The Companion set covered 15 through 25. Master Rules extended the range to level 36, and the final set, Immortal Rules, dealt with characters who had pushed beyond levels entirely, transcending into something the game called Immortals. Each set was a standalone expansion of the one before it, building a complete arc from novice adventurer to near-divine being. The Companion Rules set carried interior art by Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley, and the two booklets inside were edited by Anne Gray. TSR, the publisher, put the set out as a boxed set containing a 64-page book and a 32-page book.

• 3. The Collector's Moment

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  Nineteen eighty-four also saw TSR publish the 10th Anniversary Dungeons & Dragons Collector's Set, a boxed set that gathered the rulebooks from the Basic, Expert, and Companion sets together in a single package. It added modules AC2, AC3, B1, B2, and M1, Blizzard Pass, along with Player Character Record Sheets and dice. Only 1,000 copies were printed. TSR sold the set by mail and at GenCon 17, making it accessible only to those with direct access to TSR's catalog or a convention floor. For collectors today, that limited print run and the specific modules bundled inside give the anniversary set a significance the standard Companion box does not carry.

• 4. Life at Level 15

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  Player's Companion: Book One opens with a reflection on how much a character changes between level one and level 15. The shift is not just statistical. The book introduces game statistics for new weapons and armor types, along with rules for unarmed combat. It turns its attention to the practical realities of high-level play, detailing how to run a stronghold and spelling out recurrent costs, including the wages owed to castle staff. Each character class gains new abilities and improvements in skills and spells as it climbs through levels 15 to 25. The book focuses primarily on human characters, handling dwarves, elves, and halflings in a separate section. For those three demi-human classes, the Companion set introduced the concept of the "attack rank." Under the Expert Set rules, demi-humans hit a maximum level and could advance no further. The attack rank gave players a reason to keep accumulating experience points anyway, converting that progress into improved combat ability. The set also added an optional character class: the druid, presented not as a standalone class but as a special advancement path for clerics of neutral alignment.

• 5. The War Machine

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  Dungeon Master's Companion: Book Two opens on the challenges of running a campaign for characters who have largely outgrown the dungeon. It presents a feudal framework in which player characters hold dominions, either granted to them or taken by force. The book also includes notes on how to organize and run tournaments. Its most distinctive contribution is a system called "The War Machine," designed by Douglas Niles and Gary Spiegel specifically to handle large-scale battles. The design intent was to manage warfare that functions as campaign background rather than the central scene of play, keeping mass combat from overwhelming the rest of the game. Beyond the mass combat rules, the book covers other worlds and planes, provides game statistics for new monsters and treasure, and contains three short adventure scenarios.

• 6. Mixed Verdicts

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  Dave Nalle, writing in issue 31 of Abyss, was pointed in his disappointment. He described the set as "a hodgepodge of additional information" and argued that the guidelines for establishing a stronghold community were confused and misleading. His sharpest criticism was that "everything in this book is a reiteration of material in the normal Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules." He acknowledged the idea of a campaign built around characters ruling territory as "a good idea," but found the mechanics unrealistic and overly dependent on random die rolls and arbitrary comparisons. His conclusion was biting: the set's chief ambition, he wrote, was "to get more money from munchkins," a term for players who build the most powerful characters possible. Megan C. Robertson offered a warmer assessment in issue 61 of White Dwarf, published in January 1985. Robertson noted that most characters reaching 15th level in the Basic D&D game would logically be thinking about retirement, and she found the Companion Set offered "some ideas for this to be a little more interesting than simple retirement." Her final rating was 7 out of 10.