Following the Basic and Expert rules sets Mentzer brings us the Companion Set. It’s interesting that the newest of sets is probably one of the most indebted to the Original D&D rules. While Basic covered starting characters from levels 1 to 3, focusing mainly on Dungeon adventures, Expert broadened out the world to wilderness adventures and gave the rules from level to 4 to14. 

This new Companion Set gives support for characters from levels 15 to 25 and it’s in finding new things to do for such high level characters that this set resorts a lot to the original rules from 1974, particularly in what concerns rules for army battles and the building and upkeep of a stronghold. As the character reaches these levels, simple adventures become too small for them which means that they will now want to expand their territory and rule over their own dominions.

The original 1974 rules, being an expansion to the Chainmail tabletop combat game also focused a lot on army clashes and strongholds, all of which comes back here. The Companion Set also adds rules for hand to hand wrestling and joust-like tournaments, bringing new fun mini-games to D&D which would happen in the context of a courtly society. The DM section of the set also adds a bunch of mini-adventures which help introduce the new mechanics as well as set the characters on the path to military expansion outward from the Grand Duchy of Karameikos where most of the Basic and Expert adventures were set.