The Best Way to Fix D&D Combat Isn’t from D&D
11K views · Sep 26, 2025 · Entertainment
Comments · 202
@StephaniePlaysGames · 1 year ago · pinned
What HP alternatives do you love? 💕
22
@TalesFromElsewhereGames · 1 year ago
This is such a cool adaptation of wounds into D&D! And you did such a great job explaining the draw of Wounds and what they can offer narratively! 🤠
47
@kquixotic · 1 year ago
Great idea to augment HP. It made me think of how Mothership handles health. You have a number of "wounds" you can take as a player, 1-3 generally, and each wound is a bag of hp, so you can have 3 wounds comprised of 9hp each, or 2 wounds comprised of 6hp each. When you take enough damage to empty one of these wounds, you roll on a table of wound results for the type of damage taken (fire, blades, freezing) and end up with that debuffing wound.<br><br>I think something like that would work for 5e; break points sprinkled in a PC's HP.
10
@owenredgrove · 1 year ago (edited)
Love the spotlight on TFE, grats to Peter on getting funded! Also, my planned homebrew for HP next campaign uses the "if you're below 50% a hit might injure you" idea. But instead of looking at the hit, I'm thinking to make players roll just like a concentration save for a spell. Fail it and you're injured. Then, crucially, I want the players to decide how their character is injured. And the injury could be as simple as being knocked back and knocked prone, or something far nastier if they want a bigger challenge to overcome. But it's on them to decide what setback they'll endure. And no wound slots, just narrative.
19
@3LastSon · 1 year ago
Good ideas, here. I don't normally give out unsolicited advice, but I'd definitely suggest that everyone considering this think it through thoroughly and maybe playtest it a bit with your group before committing to add it to your games in the long term. Anything that makes combat deadlier, more random, more dangerous or adds injury systems that can cause long term effects to a combatant will <b>always</b> work <b>against</b> the players, since PCs get into more fights than any other character in the game. As long as everyone's cool with this and fully understands the ramifications you should be good.
7
@N0-1_H3r3 · 1 year ago
A version I've used in my own game designs - Star Trek Adventures, Fallout, Achtung! Cthulhu, etc., is a hybrid "Stress and Wounds" system:<br><br>Basically, you have Stress, which functions basically like hit points, but you recover them faster: they're your ability to keep avoiding punishment, turning serious hits into scrapes and near misses. Whenever you take damage, you take Stress first.<br><br>If a hit deals an amount of Stress beyond a particular threshold, then it <b>also</b> inflicts a Wound, which is a lasting serious injury that imposes penalties, and which is much harder to heal. You can only take a few Wounds before you're Defeated (out of the fight), and Defeated can mean bleeding out and dying. I'd suggest a number equal to Proficiency Bonus if you're patching this into D&D but reducing this number for NPCs so that minor fodder NPCs are felled after only one Wound.<br><br>In the games I've listed above, the threshold for causing Wounds is set at 5, but when mapping it over to D&D, I'd maybe set it based on class, or Constitution score, or a mix of both. You're still using HP (just renamed as Stress), but Wounds are an extra layer beneath.<br><br>When you heal a Wound, first it gets Treated (bandaged up, no longer bleeding, broken limb in a splint, etc), which removes the penalty, but not the full Wound slot. Fully healing it takes time, but it heals faster if it's been treated. If you take a wound when you have a treated wound, you also aggravate your old wound, and it needs to be treated again.
12
@Albastine0 · 1 year ago
Crown and skull's health point system is pretty interesting as well. It uses your equipment and skills and you mark them off as you get hit. You choose to mark your lockpicking skill? The bandit swung his club and cracked your fingers.
10
@HybridDom · 1 year ago
Oooo, you know what would be great. Like a document of your favorite alt rules and conditions you use in your game sometimes.
9
@YdnarSnorgle · 5 months ago
I like how you adjusted the damage dice to a wounds and conditions model while keeping the actual dice combos rolled for each hit the same. Nice smooth integration of the “stolen” mechanic with the dnd rules.
@tonysladky8925 · 1 year ago
I do think Wounds are potentially a very interesting system and want to play and run more games that use them, but they're also A LOT to homebrew into D&D.<br><br>I think you can get a lot of the impact from them WITHOUT all the homebrew via things like "making your combats more meaningful with more interesting terrain and objectives" or a little system I like to call "That's Gonna Leave a Mark" wherein the GM asks the player to narrate how the enemy knocks them out in a way that's going to leave a scar if they survive, sorta like a reverse of the "How do you want to do this?" made famous by Critical Role.
12
@TylerHanna · 1 year ago
I think maybe a simpler way to implement these ideas in 5e is to homebrew some monster statblocks that inflict unique conditions. One monster -> one condition seems easier to run than needing to look up a table of wounds based on damage types.
10
@philwhitcher6147 · 8 months ago
That is so cool that you got to play with Peter, his game design videos are just amazing, so insightful, he has clearly put in his “10 thousand hours” in his craft.
Up next
There's a Correct Target in D&D Combat
Tabletop University · 264K views
The Most Dangerous Word in D&D (and how it’s killing your game)
Monster Mechanics · 80K views
Why I hate alignment (and what I use instead)
Ginny Di · 150K views
Why Both XP and Milestones Fail
Mystic Arts · 103K views
The DM's Hardest Problem (& How to Solve It)
Bob World Builder · 91K views
D&D Tension Tricks | How to Hook Your Players INSTANTLY
Stephanie Plays Games · 13K views
This Will Change How You Run D&D Taverns Forever
Stephanie Plays Games · 12K views
3 Dungeon Design Patterns Game Devs Keep Secret
Dungeon Masterpiece · 42K views
Epic Level 6 makes your D&D games DANGEROUS.
Tabletop University · 39K views
Mr Beast and the Death of literature
Man Carrying Thing · 425K views
What Did People in Ancient Rome Actually Do All Day?
Rome Unscrolled and Before Civilization · 1.4M views
Fixing my BORING D&D combat
Ginny Di · 1M views
Remove Long Rests: Fix the Martial / Caster Divide
Mystic Arts · 117K views
The Entire D&D Timeline in 11 mins (Lore Animated)
DnD Shorts · 909K views
The D&D questions you guys would ONLY ask anonymously
Ginny Di · 572K views
The 7 Deadly SINS of D&D Backstories
Edariad · 340K views
D&D Combat is Boring (and how to fix it)
Pointy Hat · 730K views
What Went Wrong With the 5e Bonus Action
What is Tabletop · 51K views
7 Villain Archetypes Every DM Needs to Know
Stephanie Plays Games · 40K views
How Pro DnD DMs Run Fast Combat Every Time
Bonus Reaction · 45K views
Running Exciting D&D / TTRPG Combat (from someone who hates combat)
Corkboards & Curiosities · 147K views
The Real Secret to Tanking in D&D
DM Timothy · 200K views
If your campaign idea is good, it'll pass these 6 tests
Edariad · 65K views
Save your D&D campaign by doing this ONE thing first
Ginny Di · 151K views
D&D Exploration SUCKS. This is why.
Deficient Master · 244K views
5 Things Every Great D&D Faction Needs
Stephanie Plays Games · 17K views