One Roll Combat for D&D, OSR, and D&D-like Games (ft. Paolo Greco)

You can use these few pages of quick-and-easy to use rules to cover multiple rounds worth of combat with just one (sometimes, everyone will need to roll simultaneously again after, for damage that they take and/or hirelings or items lost) roll. 

This decenters violence as a method of solving problems, make combats quick and unpredictable when they do happen, and ensure that their aftermath results in things such as enemies fleeing, surrendering, or attempting to negotiate... as well as inflicting destruction of non-combat resources of the PCs.

These rules fit into your preferred game, assume that your preferred game uses something equivalent to levels for PCs and hit dice for NPCs, and uses your choice of:

• a standard HP-based system
• a Fine --> Wounded --> Dead system

Simply by varying the size of the die rolled, you can change the feel of this ruleset to something: 

• along the lines of the typical OSR game, giving the players a good reason to carefully plan and prepare for each combat
• like modern D&D, albeit with somewhat more interesting outcomes from combat than simple annihilation of one side
  
• as heroic and high-flying as any near superheroic game, giving them some rewards for cleverness beforehand, but making the foregone conclusion (by which I mean, the PC's eventual victory) go by quickly. 

This, and all my other content, is free those supporting me on Patreon at $5 and up. Click here to go to my Patreon.