This chapter introduces the Player's Option combat system, an advanced set of skirmish rules designed to add detail and flavor to battles in an AD&D game. The combat rules from the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master® Guide have been expanded and streamlined to create more active, exciting battles.
In most forms of personal combat, there is a lot more going on than a cycle of swing-and-miss and swing-and-hit actions. In a fight, people move around. They press advantages or fall back when they need to get some room. Consider a pair of boxers. They're not just throwing punches; they're ducking, dodging, weaving, and trying different attack strategies such as jabs, hooks, or uppercuts.
Armed combat is much the same. Position is important. Enemies try to surround lone characters to get flank or rear attacks. Large creatures such as giants or dragons use their bulk to knock smaller opponents back and scatter defenses. These are not unusual attacks or special maneuvers; they're things that just happen in the chaos of a fight.
The Player's Option combat system incorporates these effects and tactics, making them available for heroes and monsters both. Your battles will never be the same again.
Does This Belong in My Campiagn?[]
The Player's Option combat system is an integrated set of rules that dovetails with the later chapters in this book. However, you don't have to use this chapter in order to make use of the other systems.
This chapter presents several new combat actions, restructures the AD&D initiative system, and introduces retreats, fatigue, and critical events. Most of the material assumes that you will use these rules with character and monster miniatures on some kind of map. If you don't want to run combat like this, you'll still find that the new initiative system and actions can be used without any figures or maps at all.