D&D General BECMI - okay how do you Immortal?

[Shades of Eternity]

Been watching Mr. Welch so I want to ask this.

How do you immortal?

BEC seems solid as stone, but M seems to stumble and I feels unfocused as heck.

So you are given a party of immortals and how do you run a game.

 

[Yaarel]

One can roughly correlate 5e.

Levels 1-4: Basic
Levels 5-8: Expert
Levels 9-12: Champion
Levels 13-16: Master
Levels 17-20: Immortal (Lower Rank)

Levels 21-24: Immortal (Upper Rank)

 

[cbwjm]

I never reached M let alone I when I played BECMI, however, I'd suggest reading the various immortal level adventures to get some idea. A large part of it would probably be roleplay developing your following, then there is the countering of other immortals opposed to your goals or the goals of your immortal sponsor. I almost feel like an immortal level game should have at least two levels; the immortal level where all of the divine stuff plays out, and the mortal champions where all of the opposition on the prime plane plays out.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Wow, haven't thought about Immortals for over 30 years...

I only ran one game back when finishing high school. It basically resolved around contests for the PCs to increase their Power Points IIRC... Other immortals challenged them with tasks, riddles, etc., sort of like gambling and betting on the outcomes of their performance. They used their power to shape their realms and such. Finally, they had to earn their place in the pantheon of the world and establish their purpose (god of fate, war, etc.).

 

[Lyxen]

Been watching Mr. Welch so I want to ask this.

How do you immortal?

BEC seems solid as stone, but M seems to stumble and it feels unfocused as heck.

So you are given a party of immortals and how do you run a game.

The thing is that, as pointed out by @Yaarel (and although I would not agree with his segmentation), there is a change in the type of game between B, E, C, M, and I. C is about dominions, but already M is about ascension. It's about having sponsors in the Immortals, maybe conflicting ones for different members of your party, that guide you, give you objectives, etc. If you look at the M Modules, you will see this clearly, there is a conflict between Immortals, and you move from being their pawn to being their agent in the mortal world, to being worthy of ascension. It's already a different type of game, one which will prepare you for the Immortal games where the principles are again different.

 

[Lyxen]

One can roughly correlate 5e.

Levels 1-4: Basic
Levels 5-8: Expert
Levels 9-12: Champion
Levels 13-16: Master
Levels 17-20: Immortal

Levels 21-24: (Epic)

I don't really agree there, 5e has a more compact range than BECMI, and you really can't play Immortal with the 5e rules anyway.

For me it would rather be:

• Basic: Levels 1-4: Local Heroes
• Expert: Levels 5-10: Heroes of the Realm
• Champion: Levels 11-16: Masters of the Realm
• Master: Levels 17-20: Masters of the World + Epic, at least a few levels
• Immortal: I have yet to found epic rules for 5e that give you something even approaching what an Immortal game feels like, actually.

 

[cbwjm]

I don't really agree there, 5e has a more compact range than BECMI, and you really can't play Immortal with the 5e rules anyway.

For me it would rather be:

• Basic: Levels 1-4: Local Heroes
• Expert: Levels 5-10: Heroes of the Realm
• Champion: Levels 11-16: Masters of the Realm
• Master: Levels 17-20: Masters of the World + Epic, at least a few levels
• Immortal: I have yet to found epic rules for 5e that give you something even approaching what an Immortal game feels like, actually.

I'd probably tack on something like the rules for gods from 3e if I was wanting to play up an immortal/deity level game.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't really agree there, 5e has a more compact range than BECMI, and you really can't play Immortal with the 5e rules anyway.

For me it would rather be:

• Basic: Levels 1-4: Local Heroes
• Expert: Levels 5-10: Heroes of the Realm
• Champion: Levels 11-16: Masters of the Realm
• Master: Levels 17-20: Masters of the World + Epic, at least a few levels
• Immortal: I have yet to found epic rules for 5e that give you something even approaching what an Immortal game feels like, actually.

Yeah, the four Tiers of 5E seem to track to BECM pretty well.

 

[Lyxen]

I'd probably tack on something like the rules for gods from 3e if I was wanting to play up an immortal/deity level game.

I actually had that problem with 3e when I ran my biggest campaign ever, which went into ascension. 3e was not well suited for high level play anyway, too annoying with too many modifiers, took way too long to run, so I created a much simpler system based on Heroquest, which scales extremely well (it was made for scaling Runequest up, since Runequest work sway better than D&D but does not scale well either when you go too much about 100% - although the recent editions do much better).

In any case, since you are playing more with basic principles, I think a more freeform system works way better than a prolongation of a technical system, the characters are beyond mortal/technical descriptions.

 

[Yaarel]

I don't really agree there, 5e has a more compact range than BECMI, and you really can't play Immortal with the 5e rules anyway.

For me it would rather be:

• Basic: Levels 1-4: Local Heroes
• Expert: Levels 5-10: Heroes of the Realm
• Champion: Levels 11-16: Masters of the Realm
• Master: Levels 17-20: Masters of the World + Epic, at least a few levels
• Immortal: I have yet to found epic rules for 5e that give you something even approaching what an Immortal game feels like, actually.

In 5e, the "mid-levels", tier 9-12, play so differently from both 5-8 and 13-16. It feels like a separate tier in every sense, and correlates with the proficiency bonus improvement.

My impression of BECMI is, as @cbwjm notes, there are virtually two tiers of Immortal: the game of manipulating the world and the tier where they interact with each other.