Even though I’ve played and enjoyed just about every edition of Dungeons & Dragons, with an exception to 4th, I’ve pretty much stayed out of the fray in regards to D&D clones. I’ve somewhat maintained the semblance of a semi-regular D&D Basic campaign (live game) for about two years, primarily relying on the Rules Cyclopedia, and occasionally mixing (and experimenting) in elements from games like HackMaster as well as more recently, Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Like any role-playing alchemist, I’ll never stop mixing. And since Mazes & Perils Deluxe Edition is a clone of Holmes Basic D&D, I’m eager to take a closer look.
Mazes & Perils Deluxe Edition is a follow up to the original ENnie award winning Mazes & Perils. Much to be expected the system includes a decent number of slight modifications to one of my favorite versions of D&D. In my opinion, clones should deviate to some degree. Even if the changes are relatively minor and such is the case here, these sorts of changes put forth two wonderful ideas.
Mazes & Perils Deluxe Edition features two new classes, the Enchanter and the Shaman. The Enchanter class is very much in the vibe of an Illusionist (from AD&D) type class, while the Shaman is somewhat similar to the Druid Class (also from AD&D). I don’t have AD&D on my shelf currently, so the reference could be merely in my mind, and the caveat being these are refined for D&D Basic. With these new classes, I thought they’d likely be a well-balanced class option. Also, Mazes & Perils distinguishes race separate from class, though a few classes aren’t available to certain races. Class options with demi-humans are balanced with level caps, and similar to Holmes Basic the maximum progression is 12th level for human characters. One of the more interesting design choices was to put all class and race Hit Dice (HD) at d6, but there is also an option to taper character HD by class, for DMs (and I would) that prefer it.
Beyond the above, what you get with Mazes & Perils is pretty much the usual fair. A nice little gem of this product is that it features a fillable dungeon by Dyson Logos and a few blank sheets for the DM to fill out in stocking it.
The PDF is illustrated with heaping handful of black and white stock art, but there are a few pieces I haven’t seen before. The overall layout is decent, but there are a couple of big white spaces throughout. The writing is in RPG standard double column format with, a hyperlinked Table of Contents and plenty of tables which are good for easy reference and occasionally service to break up big blocks of text. Front to back the PDF of Mazes and Perils Deluxe is a slim 75 pages.
Disclosures: This review uses affiliate links. Mazes & Perils was supplied free of cost for the purpose of this review.
contributed by Jeff Duncan
Mazes & Perils Deluxe Edition is a follow up to the original ENnie award winning Mazes & Perils. Much to be expected the system includes a decent number of slight modifications to one of my favorite versions of D&D. In my opinion, clones should deviate to some degree. Even if the changes are relatively minor and such is the case here, these sorts of changes put forth two wonderful ideas.
- That ultimately, any RPG is only as good as you make it
- There’s more than one way to skin whatever you’re playing
Mazes & Perils Deluxe Edition features two new classes, the Enchanter and the Shaman. The Enchanter class is very much in the vibe of an Illusionist (from AD&D) type class, while the Shaman is somewhat similar to the Druid Class (also from AD&D). I don’t have AD&D on my shelf currently, so the reference could be merely in my mind, and the caveat being these are refined for D&D Basic. With these new classes, I thought they’d likely be a well-balanced class option. Also, Mazes & Perils distinguishes race separate from class, though a few classes aren’t available to certain races. Class options with demi-humans are balanced with level caps, and similar to Holmes Basic the maximum progression is 12th level for human characters. One of the more interesting design choices was to put all class and race Hit Dice (HD) at d6, but there is also an option to taper character HD by class, for DMs (and I would) that prefer it.
Beyond the above, what you get with Mazes & Perils is pretty much the usual fair. A nice little gem of this product is that it features a fillable dungeon by Dyson Logos and a few blank sheets for the DM to fill out in stocking it.
The PDF is illustrated with heaping handful of black and white stock art, but there are a few pieces I haven’t seen before. The overall layout is decent, but there are a couple of big white spaces throughout. The writing is in RPG standard double column format with, a hyperlinked Table of Contents and plenty of tables which are good for easy reference and occasionally service to break up big blocks of text. Front to back the PDF of Mazes and Perils Deluxe is a slim 75 pages.
Overall, if you’re familiar or are interested in running D&D Basic I think Mazes and Perils Deluxe should have some appeal. To be honest, I’d favor Labyrinth Lord in regards to art and layout (among clones anyway), but that’s not to say that Mazes & Perils doesn’t get the job done. Especially, if you’re interested in doing some hacking, it’s always nice to have a reference to help get that done or to see how others might do it and draw from those ideas. As is, this product is a slimmer clone of D&D and should make for an easy reference at your table.Disclosures: This review uses affiliate links. Mazes & Perils was supplied free of cost for the purpose of this review.
contributed by Jeff Duncan
