Mitch Hedberg

It’s based on D&D (but doesn’t require any knowledge or lean on the game strongly at all), so it’s small party combat.

I just think it’s so visercal, so well-defined without being dry. At all times I felt like the picture of the fights was really being painted blow by blow, including deft movements and tactical thinking. It was never “they exchanged blows,” it was always “Drizzt turned in perfect time to evade the hammer’s swing, and maneuvered between the legs of the larger man to send the jagged edge of his blade through the man’s back,” only much much better because R.A. Salvatore is 100x better a writer than I am.

R.A. Salvatore’s Icewind Dale Trilogy.

I don’t know why this fell out of popular culture, but it’s excellent and I haven’t read a writer who writes better combat.