I started playing with these tables in the context of mass combat ideas, but it might be a good way to avoid handfuls of dice when your 8th-level party is fighting a horde of goblins or orcs (or any 1HD creatures that deal 1d6 damage, basically, but see special cases below) - a situation that happened several times in my current campaign.
Instead of rolling each attack separately, just roll damage, using the table below.
It’s up to the GM to decide (or check the book to see) how many creatures can attack a single PC at once — in melee, this number might be limited to 6 or 8, but archers could potentially be much worse.
I originally wrote this for B/X (unarmored AC = 9 means you have 55% chance to-hit), but see special cases below
The averages are very close to the original, with few outliers. This is most useful and precise when you are fighting many creatures - if there are only 2 or 3 foes, go back to the original D&D system of rolling 1d20 to-hit, then maybe damage, etc.
Example: five goblins attack your AC 3 fighter - just roll 1d6+1 damage. If they attack your AC 6 thief in the next round, the damage is 2d6 instead. If 15 goblin archers aim at your AC 6 mage, they deal 6d6 damage!
Special cases
AD&D. Use the AD&D line.
Ascending AC [for B/X, OSE]. Use the AAC line.
Other systems. If your system is similar but the AC numbers are different (e.g. LotFP, BFRPG), you can use the AAC line as "number needed on the d20". For example, if you need 15 or more to hit, check the 15 on the table.
Creatures with different damage. Creatures that cause 1d6-1 or 1d6+1 damage add a bonus/penalty per dice. So 6d6 becomes 6d6+6, for example. Treat 1d4 as 1d6-1 and 1d8 as 1d6+1.
Creatures with different HD. You can use the AAC line with the number needed to hit. For example, a 2+1 HD creature in B/X hits AC 0 on a 17 or more. The easiest way to do that without THAC0 or other tables is just adding 1 to AC for each HD after the first one (remember that 1+1 HD counts as 2 etc.). In other words, a creature with 3 HD attacks AC 0 as if it was AC 3, and AC 6 as if it was 9.
Damaging hordes. This system only deals with the damage that hordes deal, not what they take; we'll leave that for another day, but the fighters would at the very least deserve some kind of "cleaving" power.
HOWEVER. If you give fighters one attack per level against 1 HD creatures (like OD&D), you could use this table for them too! Just substitute the number of creatures for the fighter's level. So a 7th-level fighter attacking AC 6 goblins deals 3d6+1 damage if using an 1d6 weapon; if his damage is 1d8+1, it becomes 3d8+4 instead. No d20 needed.
Creatures with more than 3 HD, 2d8 damage, special powers, etc. This system is for simple creatures that can be treated as swarms. Anything more complex than that defeats the purpose. While in theory you can run swarms of ogres with a similar method, I prefer to keep this system for goblins, orcs, kobolds, cave man, ordinary humans, wolves, and similar creatures.
Memorizing this table. Is easy to memorize that a group of twenty 1 HD creatures, with 1d6 damage each, deal 2d6 damage per round against AC 0. Just add 1d6 for AC 1, 2d6 for AC 2, 3d6 for AC 3, etc. If there are fewer than twenty creatures, I can usually do a rough estimation on my head without a table - try it and see which method you prefer.
For example, AC 5 results in 7d6 (2d6+5d6) for 20 creatures, so 6 creatures would deal a little less than one third of that (I'd guess 2d6 or 2d6+1).
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