Combat

The AD&D game is an adventure game designed to give players a feeling of excitement and danger. Characters brave the unknown perils of moldering dungeons and thorn-covered wilderness. facing off against hideous monsters and evil villains. Thus, it is important for all players to know the basic rules for handling combat.

To create the proper sense of danger and excitement, the rules for combat must be thorough, but they must also be playable and exciting enough to create a vivid picture in the minds of the players. Combat in the AD&D game has to allow many different actions and outcomes — as many as the imagination can produce. Knowing that anything could happen next (because the rules allow it) creates excitement for everyone.

More Than Just Hack-and-Slash

As important as fighting is to the AD&D game, it isn't the be-all and end-all of play. It's just one way for Characters to deal with situations. If characters could do nothing but fight, the game would quickly get boring — every encounter would be the same. Because there is more to the game than fighting, we'll cover much more than simple hack-and-slash combat in this chapter.

In addition to explaining the basic mechanics of hitting and missing, there are rules here for turning undead, special ways to attack and defend, poison, heroic feats, and more.

Definitions

Many game terms are used throughout the combat rules. To understand the rules, players must understand these terms, so brief explanations appear below. Further details are provided throughout this chapter.

Armor Class (AC) is the protective rating of a type of armor. In some circumstances, AC is modified by the amount of protection gained or lost because of the character's situation. For instance, crouching behind a boulder improves a character's Armor Class, while being attacked from behind worsens his AC.

Armor provides protection by reducing the chance that a character is attacked successfully (and suffers damage). Armor does not absorb damage, it prevents it. A fighter in full plate mail may be a slow-moving target, but penetrating his armor to cause any damage is no small task.

Armor Class is measured on a scale from 10, the worst (no armor), to -10, the best (very powerful magical armors). The lower the number, the more effective the armor. Shields can also improve the AC of a Character.

Abilities and situations can also affect a character's Armor Class. High Dexterity gives a bonus to Armor Class, for example. But even a character with a Dexterity bonus can have this bonus negated if he is attacked from the rear.

Damage is what happens to a character when an opponent attacks him successfully. Damage can also occur as a result of poison, fire, falling, acid, and anything even remotely dangerous in the real world. Damage from most attacks is measured in hit points. Each time a character is hit, he suffers points of damage. It could be as little as point to as many as 80 or more. These points are subtracted from the character's current hit point total. When this reaches 0, the character is dead.

Initiative determines the order in which things happen in a combat round. Like so many things in the world, initiative is determined by a combination of ability, situation, and chance. At the start of each round of a battle, an initiative roll is made by both sides. This roll can be modified by the abilities of the combatants and by the situation. The person or side with the lower modified die roll acts first.

Melee is any situation in which characters are battling each other hand-to-hand, whether with fists, teeth, claws, swords, axes, pikes, or something else. Strength and Dexterity are valuable assets in melee.

Missile combat is defined as any time a weapon is shot, thrown, hurled, kicked, or otherwise propelled. Missile and melee combat have the same basic rules. but there are special situations and modifiers that apply only to missile combat.

Saving throws are measures of a character's resistance to special types of attacks— poisons, magic, and attacks that affect the whole body or mind of the character. The ability to make successful saving throws improves as the character increases in level; Dexterity and general mental fortitude aid in honing combat senses. Experience makes saving throws easier.

Surprise can happen any characters another group unexpectedly (monsters, evil knights, peasants. etc.). Surprise is simply what happens when one side—a person or party—is taken unawares, unable to react until they gather their wits. Their opponents, if unsurprised, are allowed a bonus round of action while the characters recover. It's entirely possible for both sides in a given situation to be surprised!

Attacking with surprise gives bonuses to the attack roll (see Table 51). A surprised character also has a decreased chance of rolling a successful saving throw, if one is needed. Surprise is determined by a die roll and is normally checked at the beginning of an encounter. Surprise is very unpredictable, so there are very few modifiers to the roll.

Attacking & THAC0
Combat and Encounters
The Combat Sequence
Initiative
Attacking with Two Weapons
Off Hand Weapon Use
Kneeling and Sitting
Movement in Combat
Melee Maneuvers
Non-lethal Combat
Touch Spells and Combat
Missile Weapons in Combat
Parrying
OPTIONAL: Hit Locations
The Saving Throw
Magic Resistance
Turning Undead
Injury & Death
Recovery
Special Damage
Healing
Character Death