From Introduction: In the world of the fantasy adventurer, life is combat. Be it through the use of swords, spells, psionics, or any other means at their disposal, all those who take up the cause of the open road and a sealed dungeon must do battle with another creature and kill it. End of story. The use of combat began with the first two creatures ever to meet and make their claim over a morsel of food, a territory of land, or the right to mate. In time, with the aid of thousands of years in evolution and conception, the battle between two intelligent beings has grown into an art. Fighters train from infancy to carry all manners of weapons and wield them into battle with perfection and skill; rogues use the smallest and subtlest of tactics to wound their foes unexpectedly; and magic-users call upon the arcane energies of the universe to inflict harm upon those stronger and faster than themselves. While some may seek only to dispose or remove the threat that stands before them, most accept the responsibility that they will have to claim a life. To fail is to die and this is why you cannot get it wrong. Combat Options: Defence is a sourcebook for the d20 fantasy role-playing system and is intended as the first is a series of combat-specific material. In here, we shall dive into the tenets of the fighting arts and tread across new, optional rules and variants to the existing system in order to provide these scenes with added realism and strategy.