D&D 5E Revised Mystara Player's Guide- Free setting guide written using the WOTC Fan Creation License

[The Glen]

About a year ago, I released a player's guide for the Mystara setting, which we all know is the best official D&D setting ever created. It had over 30 new subclasses, dozens of new spells, and over a dozen new feats. It showcased the immersive Known World featuring the background of over 16 nations and a flying city-state of gnomes. There were new ways to use magic with the Secret Crafts and the Radiance that gave you powerful new abilities with the minor chance of a gruesome death. All the art was commissioned from various artists to showcase the myriad of cultures and aspects of the setting. Even if you didn't play in existing settings, there was a lot of crib. I wanted to release it on the guild, but Mystara, after nearly 7 years, still isn't allowed. So I released it anyways because it needed to be played. It was downloaded tens of thousands of times. A POD friendly option was created for those that wanted to print their own copy and all was good.

But the book had problems, my editors weren't as thorough as I hoped, and many of my playtesters just told me what I wanted to hear. Others pointed out the flaws and the rules issues, and I decided I needed to fix those. Call it a symptom of my morbid obsession with absolute flawlessness. If you're going to make something, make it awesome. So I'm again presenting the revised Mystara Player's Guide for free download. It has fixed the typos, the subclasses are more balanced, the special magics are better explained and it's a lot prettier. There is still a POD version you can take to various sites, I'm not affiliated with any of them. There's an Italian language version also available. Some Mystara fans told me the book had one glaring error, and that it was in the wrong language. Then sent me the book entirely translated into Italian. And told me now it was perfect. So now I'm putting this out again for anyone looking for new options. While I continue work on the Mystara Dungeon Master's Guide.

Mystara Player’s Guide | RPGMP3

www.rpgmp3.com

 

[Buzzqw]

Hi
truly thanks for your awesome work!

i suggest to try to optimize the pdf using tool like GitHub - maltris/optpdf: A simple script utilizing ghostscript to optimize PDF-files the file size goes down to near 62mb

thanks again for your dedication!

BHH

 

[The Glen]

I'll take a look at it, thanks.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Hollow World still down there?

 

[The Glen]

Hollow World still down there?

Yes but a bit outside the scope of the Player's Guide. But definitely get a mention in the DMG

 

[eternalsage]

I had seen somewhere that there was an issue with the revised version not downloading correctly? Is that fixed and how can we tell which version we have? Thanks!!

 

[The Glen]

I had seen somewhere that there was an issue with the revised version not downloading correctly? Is that fixed and how can we tell which version we have? Thanks

The issue was fixed almost immediately. The Italian version had a problem that was fixed after about a day. The easiest way to tell the two apart is the fan content creation legal document that's required in the book is on the last page of the revised rather than the second page of the original.

 

[eternalsage]

Perfect! Thanks for the (very very fast) update! That means the one I grabbed is the new one! THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK!

Not really a D&D fan, but I have watched a lot of your Mystara videos and I thought I might give this a whirl and see what I think. It sounds just different enough to pique my interest, and if my group likes it, I may convert it to a different rules set altogether, but this is a good way to try it before I dig in that deep, lol.

 

[The Glen]

Well if anything stands out that your players absolutely love let me know because I always need feedback

 

[eternalsage]

As someone who has done creative endeavors before, trust me, I know how invaluable honest criticism can be. The hard part will be fair and honest criticism without the background in the original setting, but I will most definitely do what I can

 

[The Glen]

I know where most of the weak points are. The secret crafts were done as Prestige classes from a very early UA. They barely work but there was no other way to do it. Some of the subclasses are geographically specific which is something that 5th edition avoids, but if you're a disciple of the radiance it helps being near the radiance. Spirit shamans are unplayable unless you have the rules for spirits which you have to go to the vaults for.

But quite a few people have found the more obscure stuff to be their favorite. Most popular spells from the book are also some of the most mundane like the ability to see exactly how many coins of which type there are in a chest just a cantrip. And a few of them are stylistic choices like all of the fighter subclasses don't get their abilities through Magic. 5th edition has a problem with that and I wanted to avoid it.

 

[SeerMalbeth]

Awesome job Mr. Welch! We will be able to finish a 38 year campaign in Mystara thanks to you! Received the red boxed set Christmas of 8th grade/1983, played expert then companion, until received the 1st Ed. AD&D books from Sears catalogue for Christmas 9th grade, continued in Known World until received the Greyhawk boxed set 10th grade. Then came college & played little in 1990s, until 3 of us in our 30s got back together and started playing 3.0/3.5 Greyhawk again, but they decided to retire their characters in Mystara, so they Gated back and we have been playing there the past decade, playing through old modules we never had money to collect as kids, converting them to Pathfinder. Now we have updated rules to finish our campaign with! The only thing we wish you had considered is Sorcerers can work in Mystara... we use Sorcerer as the default class for the more beautiful charismatic Elves... they are more natural magic-users running in the forests, different than the more scientific Wizards of Glantri & Alphatia with their books; although Arcane, Fey, etc. are the default Elven bloodlines rather than dragons, and human Foresters are those the Elves identified as having blood-lines they could invoke & train in the natural Elven way of magic... and the Erewan were even elves who decided to study magic as Wizards from books the way the humans did in Glantri. And radiant magic just seems closer to technological wizardry than innate sorcerery. Making Mystaran Elves Sorcerers wielding longswords & longbows due to racial weapon proficiencies pretty much matches fighter/magic-user Elves as a class like BECMII and explains why they weren't quit as good fighters as humans. I also introduced my son to d&d using the red boxed set and he is still playing a version of that fighter. And over 38 years, since we were 14 years old, my friend David's elf Davin has been converted from BECMII to 3.0 to 3.5 to 3.75 and maybe now to 5E, before he completes his path to Immortality as a Grognard, because of your efforts. Thank you.