Wound tracks or HP for a 5e overhaul?

[Greywander]

I keep thinking about potentially doing a huge overhaul of 5e; I have a lot of ideas, but it would be such a big undertaking that I keep waffling back and forth on whether to actually attempt such a thing. Anyway, if I did decide to give it a shot, it would involve rewriting almost everything: classes, spells, and so on. So this would basically be the one chance I'd have to make a fundamental change to the HP and damage system. And I'd need to do it right from the start, or else I'd run into the same problem of trying to implement such a drastic change into vanilla 5e; it's better to build the system from the ground up with such a major change in mind, rather than trying to force it in after the fact.

(As I do with longer posts, I've bolded some words to increase the readability. I find it to be really helpful for breaking up a wall of text.)

Now, here's what I was planning to do: You'd have a number of hit dice equal to your proficiency bonus, which sounds like you'd have a lot less HP, but you'd actually have two HP pools. I was going to call these pools Valor and Vigor. Valor is specifically not meat, and is very easy to heal. You can pretty much expect to start each fight with full Valor. Vigor is specifically real injuries, and is much more difficult to heal. Vigor also acts as a cap on your Valor, so a loss of Vigor is also a loss of max Valor. As you can see, this already makes some pretty huge changes to how damage and healing would work.

But then I remembered this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?595664-Wound-Tracks-a-hypothesis-(and-viable-at-will-healing)) I made some time ago, and I got to thinking that maybe a wound track system would be a better option. I don't know that the Valor/Vigor system is actually doing what I want it to with regards to healing. With a wound track system, I can, for example, make a cantrip to cure minor wounds, and it's fine as a cantrip because it specifically can only heal the least impactful injuries. Low level healing magic spam isn't really a concern, since they can't remove more serious wounds. This would also do away with yoyo healing, since only a very serious wound would knock you out, so an equally strong healing spell would be required to get you back up.

Here's how I'd want to use wound tracks. You'd have different tracks with different severities. Likely, you're still rolling damage as normal, then comparing that against a threshold to determine what severity of wound you've inflicted, but I'm open to better ways of doing this. Once a track is full, any further wounds of that type get upgraded to the next most severe type, allowing you to eventually bring down any monster as long as you can at least inflict a minor wound to it. But weaker monsters could be slain in one blow by dealing an especially severe wound. Minor wounds (or whatever the least severe wound type is) wouldn't have any penalties associated with them, as their only goal is to provide a buffer against chip damage. But more severe wounds would impose penalties, such as -1 to all rolls or disadvantage on all rolls, and then eventually just knock you out, or kill you outright.

This can add some interesting tactical options to the game. Using traditional HP, if you try to sneak up on an enemy and one-shot them but fail, that damage at least carries over into the fight. With a wound track system, you might inflict a penalty on them, but now you're likely having to work through all their less severe wounds. (I'm assuming some kind of Assassinate feature that can only be used on a surprised enemy, so you can't just use it again mid-fight to finish them off.) Furthermore, using traditional HP, there isn't really much difference between many attacks that each do a little damage and one attack that does a lot of damage. With a wound track system, many weak attacks can quickly fill up an enemy's lower tier wound slots, causing those weak attacks to escalate into more severe wounds, whereas a stronger single attack can inflict a more severe wound from the outset, inflicting a penalty on the enemy or bringing them down while bypassing their less severe wound tracks.

For durability, there are two values we can adjust. One is the number of wounds in each track. Initially I thought that the more severe wound tracks would only be able to accommodate a single wound due to the penalty imposed by that wound, e.g. the effect is such that it can't stack. For example, if a wound gives disadvantage or knocks you out. But you could actually still use it as a buffer before upgrading to a more severe wound, and require all such wounds to be removed in order to remove that penalty. So pretty much any wound track except the one that kills you could have more than one wound on it.

The other value we can adjust is the damage threshold for each tier of wound. Now, there's a couple different things that could influence these values. Class. Constitution score. Size. Level. I'm not sure exactly how these should be configured. It seems like it would be easier to make CON influence damage thresholds, since those could be just a multiple of your CON score, whereas influencing wound tracks would be more like determining how many spell slots you get at various caster levels. Class could add to CON somehow, simply give extra wounds on your track, or have no effect at all. Size might determine your baseline for how many wounds you have on each track. Or size could determine baseline thresholds. I'm really not sure what the best way to go here is. Does it make more sense for a larger creature like a giant or dragon to fall after sustaining the same number of wounds as a human, but inflicting those wounds is harder? Or should inflicting wounds be just as easy, but those larger creatures can sustain more of them before they fall?

Perhaps the biggest issue is if the added complexity is even worth it? I want to make this as streamlined as possible while still retaining the depth this mechanic would bring. I could probably do almost the same thing by just having more HP pools, tiered in a similar way to the wound tracks. So e.g. Minor HP could be healed with a cantrip, but Moderate HP would require a mid level spell or a certain amount of rest. Some abilities might allow you to bypass lower tier HP pools to attack a higher tier one, and damaging or fully draining a pool might inflict a penalty. What do you think?

[GeoffWatson]

Perhaps the biggest issue is if the added complexity is even worth it?

No.

Maybe as an optional rule, but D&D has always had simple hit points.

[Dienekes]

Quick question(s), for your 5e homebrew.

What is the intended play pattern? What are you trying to do that needs the different method of calculating damage?

Perhaps I missed it (I read it all, but you wrote a lot), but I don’t think I saw a reason to make the change as a means of affecting play. Like there is a lot about how one health system does this and the other does that. But if the end result is just going to be continuously saying “I attack” every round anyway, what’s the benefit for a more complicated system.

What player driven gameplay difference are you trying to create with your players. Determine that, and then figure out what system is best to realize it.

[Greywander]

I think it mostly comes down to healing, though adding more tactical options for damage can be interesting, too. But a singular, linear HP track is... not very interesting. Anything that can restore even just one HP can restore all of them if you use it enough times. Now, maybe you consider that a feature, but to me it's a flaw in the system that you can't have any kind of at-will healing ability without completely breaking the game. Using a wound track system, you could easily have at-will healing that removes the lowest tier of wounds, but nothing above that. It's still beneficial, but can no longer fully heal a character from near death. Suddenly, it becomes feasible to allow the cleric or paladin to remove small injuries as many times as they like, potentially leading to some interesting roleplay.

On the damage side, I think the wound track system makes it easier to drop an enemy in one blow if you can deal enough damage to them without giving them the constitution of wet toilet paper. Doing a certain amount of damage in a single blow can be a difficult thing to accomplish, but dealing the same amount of damage over several blows is pretty easy. With classic HP, to even have a chance of killing/KOing an enemy in one hit, you just have to give the enemy only a few HP. With a wound track system, a monster could have lower damage thresholds but lots of wounds on their tracks, making it easy to drop them in a single hit but more of a slog if you have to whittle them down. Now, you could do something similar with HP by implementing damage reduction, so that many weak blows are made even weaker, while one strong blow is barely affected, so that would be an option.

So I guess to quickly summarize, I want more depth to healing, the ability to have at-will healing without breaking the game, more interesting combat tactics, and to make it easier to drop an enemy in one powerful blow (e.g. with a sneak attack/assassinate ability) without making that enemy super flimsy if you have to fight them directly. Having wounds cause penalties can also signal to players when to retreat (before they die), or give an advantage to the players if they can strike a grievous blow to the enemy, e.g. via a crit.

[olskool]

I have already posted our group's crunchy method where HP are basically "stun damage" and you use Hit Dice to determine the number of Wounds (ie killing damage) you take from the attack. I won't repeat that system here but know that it DOES WORK IF you don't mind the complexity.

The simplest method for doing a Wound Track is to do something like the MYTHRAS system where Hit Points are divided into 3 Categories... Light Wounds, Serious Wounds, and Deadly Wounds. In this instance, the HP total would be divided between the 3 categories (with odd HP being added 1 point at a time to EACH category starting with the light wound until they are distributed). The HP would be figured just like normal. The Light Wound would provide a -1 to Initiative and reduce movement by 5ft. The Serious Wound box would get you -3 to Initiative, -10ft or 75% of Move (whichever is greater), and inflict DISADVANTAGE which could be reduced to a -2 by a successful CON Save. A Deadly Wound would give you a -5 to Initiative, Halve your Movement rate, and require a CON Roll to avoid Unconsciousness. You would also suffer DISADVANTAGE on a Deadly Wound.

The next method would be to build a FIXED wound track with a number of boxes like Shadowrun does. This will eliminate hit points entirely. This fixed Wound Track can either be a uniform track where each Wound Threshold has the same number of boxes (say two boxes per Wound Threshold) or an escalating Wound Track like the ones in Shadowrun. In our SR 2e game, we used the following number of "wound boxes" per wound threshold. We also added a Threshold to RAW SR 2e. Our Thresholds were...

Light Wound = 1 box
Moderate Wound = 2 boxes
Serious Wound = 3 boxes
Critical Wound = 4 boxes
Deadly Wound = BODY score in boxes

In a modded D&D 5e game, I would use the CLASS HIT DIE as the "gatekeeper" for WOUNDS. In this instance, I would "go retro" and REDUCE the Hit Die sizes in 5e by one step (back to the older AD&D standard). To determine the number of Wounds an attack inflicts; just roll the Damage die for a weapon and compare it to the Hit Die's maximum score (ie 4 for a 1D4 or 10 for a 1D10). If the damage was less than or equal to the Hit Die, only 1 Wound is inflicted. IF the damage scored is higher than the Hit Die, another Wound is inflicted for each multiple of the Hit Die which is exceeded. For example, rolling a 10 on a D12 Damage die would net a Wizard 2 Wounds while only inflicting a SINGLE Wound on a Fighter. This approach WILL require the modification of Spell Damages, but we already do that. In our game, an area of effect spell like Fireball only does 1 Die of damage, but it does it to everything in the blast radius. We DO scale our damages up with the PROFICIENCY BONUS. Each +1 added to your Proficiency Bonus ALSO adds another Die of Damage to the initial Die of Damage for the various spells.

Sizing Larger Threats:

You could simply double the number of wound boxes for larger creatures the size of Ogres or Trolls. Triple it for smaller Giants. Quadruple it for larger Giants and multiply it by 5 for the largest creatures. You can also increase the HIT DIE SIZE. A large Dragon might use a D20 Hit Die. This makes for great flexibility in adjusting the Wounds system.

That is the more basic Wound Track in a nutshell.

[Herbert_W]

So I guess to quickly summarize, I want more depth to healing, the ability to have at-will healing without breaking the game, more interesting combat tactics, and to make it easier to drop an enemy in one powerful blow (e.g. with a sneak attack/assassinate ability) without making that enemy super flimsy if you have to fight them directly. Having wounds cause penalties can also signal to players when to retreat (before they die), or give an advantage to the players if they can strike a grievous blow to the enemy, e.g. via a crit.

Given your design goals, I think a wound track system would be an excellent idea - it's more complicated than a single HP track but it's much simpler than the pile of subsystems that you'd end up with if you were to create mechanics for each individual goal.

My only criticism is that this changes the game so fundamentally that it might not be appropriate to call it a 5e overhaul - but that's just me being nitpicky. I assume that you're using the word 'overhaul' becasue there are elements of 5e that you want to keep - is this correct and what aspects of 5e to you want to preserve?



Likely, you're still rolling damage as normal, then comparing that against a threshold to determine what severity of wound you've inflicted, but I'm open to better ways of doing this

A simpler method would be to add granularity to a pass/fail roll that players are already making: attacks. Barely hitting a monster's AC inflicts a minor wound. Hitting by a higher margin inflicts a worse wound. Monsters (and players) could have a set of precalculated AC thresholds for each severity of wound, removing the need for a second roll to determine severity.

This gives you similar options for adjusting the toughness of each creature to the options that you described for the original wound track, except that these are now tied in tactically interesting ways into how difficult the creature is to hit. For example, small and agile creatures could have a high base AC but a small gap between threshold levels to represent the fact that they are hard to hit but easy to squish if you do, whereas tough brutes could have a low base AC and larger gaps between each threshold to represent the fact that they are easy to hit but hard to bring down.

This also provides an opportunity to have different weapon types behave in interestingly distinct ways. For example, you could have:


Some weapons (say, spears) provide a bonus to attack rolls. They are more likely to hit but the hit will likely be a minor one.
Some weapons (say, greatswords) provide a larger bonus to attack rolls, but only after the attack has already been determined to be a hit. These weapons will be less reliable but also capable to inflicting more severe wounds. These weapons will also almost never inflict a minor wound (which kinda makes sense - some weapons either miss or inflict grievous wounds, with very little chance of anything in-between.)
Some weapons (say, battleaxes) provide a random bonus to attack rolls after the attack has already been determined to be a hit. These weapons are very unreliable, but can occasionally inflict extremely severe wounds on tough targets.
Some attacks (say, blast spells) deal multiple woulds simultaneously and are dangerous primarily becasue they can quickly overwhelm lower wound tracks.
Some options (say, power attack) provide a bonus/penalty to the initial attack but also grant a larger penalty/bonus to the attack if it hits. (In the case of a penalty to an attack that's already hit, I'd have the penalty be able to reduce wound severity but not be able to turn the attack into a miss.)


This system would mean that certain weapons are more effective than others against certain foes - not becasue there's a specific rule that makes them more effective, but becasue that's just how the math works out. In the examples given, spears are more effective against agile enemies than battleaxes because battleaxes tend to miss them entirely, but battleaxes are more effective against tough enemies becasue, while both weapon types can hit them, battleaxes inflict worse wounds.

That's realistic, intuitive, and potentially able to provide a great amount of depth given a moderate amount of complexity.

The more I think about this system, the more I like it.

[olskool]

The other option is to go with the basic Hit Points system BUT limit the PCs (and monsters) to a SINGLE HIT DIE + CON bonus. The Damages in the game would have to be scaled down to accommodate this. In this instance, I might add the CON score (in lieu of the CON bonus) to the total of rolled Hit Points. At each new Level, you can do one of the following:

1) Do Nothing. High-powered PCs can still be killed by a single knife thrust.
2) Have the PCs reroll their Hit Die and IF the result is higher than their LAST rolled HD, REPLACE the previous roll with the new one. By the way, this is how the vintage TSR game Chainmail used to work.
3) Add just ONE Hit Point at each new Level gained.

All of these methods will reduce "Hit Point bloat."

You can also go all fancy and add a few "bells and whistles" to the system.

You could add a roll for locations hit. You then modify the Damage Rolled by a location modifier. For Example;

Head = 2 X Damage
Chest = Damage as rolled
Abdomen = Damage as rolled
Legs = Half Damage
Arms = Half Damage

To represent the lethality of higher Level Pcs/NPCs you could add a Damage Die to all weapons and spells each time the individual's PROFICIENCY BONUS increases. Thus a Fighter with a +3 Proficiency Bonus would roll 2D8 with their sword. A 20th Level Fighter (+6 Proficiency bonus) would roll 5D8 Damage with their sword. This allows lethality to "scale" with both Level and CR.

This is basically just a "simplified" 5e Hit Points system but it could be fun to play!

[Damon_Tor]

I've been developing an RPG system on and off which uses wound tracking, but the game is designed around a magnetic character board. Armor damage and wounds are represented by magnetic icons you stick to your character board, so tracking them is fun and easy. Using pencils and paper, no, it's hard to imagine it being very fun.

[Greywander]

Given your design goals, I think a wound track system would be an excellent idea - it's more complicated than a single HP track but it's much simpler than the pile of subsystems that you'd end up with if you were to create mechanics for each individual goal.
That's good to hear. I'm sure once I start writing up actual mechanics, I'll probably find ways to simplify and streamline it, retaining the results I want while minimizing the complexity it adds. It will still be more complex, but the additional depth will hopefully make it worth it.


My only criticism is that this changes the game so fundamentally that it might not be appropriate to call it a 5e overhaul - but that's just me being nitpicky. I assume that you're using the word 'overhaul' becasue there are elements of 5e that you want to keep - is this correct and what aspects of 5e to you want to preserve?
Fair point, I've debated whether I should post it under a 5e tag or an Original System tag whenever I get around to publishing the overhaul. I want to keep the proficiency system and proficiency bonus. I haven't thought too much about ability scores, so I might make some tweaks there, but they'd probably exist in some form. I might add some new skills, but otherwise the skill list would probably be the same, and likewise for tools. I'd also expand on the rest mechanics, keeping the existing short and long rest, but adding a few more rest types with shorter and longer durations.

One of the major changes would be the class system. Specifically, implementing the stacking classes (1 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632498-Stacking-class-mod-for-5e-(brainstorming)), 2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?624980-Let-s-make-some-stacking-classes), 3 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?624437-Difficulty-making-customizable-spellcasting-with-stacking-classes), 4 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612077-5-5e-idea-for-stacking-caster-classes-but-how-to-handle-different-types-of-casting)). The short version is that classes would be compressed down to just four levels, and you'd pick a new class each time you finished your current one. What I want to do is start off by taking existing base classes and adapting them into two or three stacking classes, and also adapt all subclasses into stacking classes. Subclasses might be a bit easier, since a lot of them already give only about four levels worth of features. Anyway, this creates a mix'n'match type of class system, and as different as it would be, I'd expect it to still feel fairly familiar if you've played 5e. So in a way, the classes and subclasses would still exist, albeit in a new form.

There's a lot of other mechanics I haven't given much thought about yet. I'd probably work off of the assumption that something works like 5e until I write my own rules for that specific thing. Eventually I'd want a complete ruleset that could be used independent of 5e, so anything that works the same would need to be restated. But there's not much point in doing that until I have the rest of the system nailed down.


A simpler method would be to add granularity to a pass/fail roll that players are already making: attacks. Barely hitting a monster's AC inflicts a minor wound. Hitting by a higher margin inflicts a worse wound. Monsters (and players) could have a set of precalculated AC thresholds for each severity of wound, removing the need for a second roll to determine severity.
This could work, but my first impression is that it just sounds like we're adding the damage and attack rolls together. Weapons that do more damage now just get a higher attack bonus, and anything that would previously boost damage is now just converted to an attack bonus. I think it can work, but it would certainly require a new perspective on how attacks and damage are handled. As you say, it's still possible to have an enemy that's hard to hit, but easily injured if you can hit. So I think there's a way to work the math out to be similar to doing the attack and damage rolls separately. I'm not sure it would be that much easier, though.


This system would mean that certain weapons are more effective than others against certain foes - not becasue there's a specific rule that makes them more effective, but becasue that's just how the math works out. In the examples given, spears are more effective against agile enemies than battleaxes because battleaxes tend to miss them entirely, but battleaxes are more effective against tough enemies becasue, while both weapon types can hit them, battleaxes inflict worse wounds.
Now this is interesting, and I think you've convinced me to aim for a system that can do this, whether that's combining the damage and attack rolls or doing them separately or taking a third option.


2) Have the PCs reroll their Hit Die and IF the result is higher than their LAST rolled HD, REPLACE the previous roll with the new one. By the way, this is how the vintage TSR game Chainmail used to work.
I actually was going to do something like this, but for multiclassing. See, with the stacking classes I mentioned above, you're already taking multiple classes, so multiclassing per se wouldn't really exist in the normal way. Also as mentioned previously, you'd have a number of hit dice equal to your proficiency bonus. The reason for this is that you're actually getting one hit die from your race, and one from each class you take (since each class is just four levels, you get a proficiency bump every time you start a new class).

So what, then, does "multiclassing" look like under such a system? Well, my thought was that you could take a new class without advancing to the next tier, so your prof. bonus doesn't increase, you don't get another hit die, and you miss out on some other major bonuses (namely, each tier is giving you either an Extra Attack/cantrip scaling or an extra bonus action, which is another thing I wanted to experiment with). Anyway, you miss out on all of those bonuses, but because you stay the same tier, the cost to level up doesn't increase. This allows you to pick up the features from another class at a cheaper XP cost, but at the cost of delaying your overall character progression.

Okay, so all that said, how did HP and hit dice fit into that? I already said that since you didn't advance a tier, you didn't get another hit die. But you could replace an existing hit die if it was smaller, and you could roll the new hit die and replace a previous roll if it was higher. I was also considering something where you would retain the extra hit die, but as a backup hit die. If you roll a hit die and don't like the result, you would be able to spend a backup hit die to see if you could roll higher. It wouldn't actually give you more hit dice to spend, just make you tend to roll higher on them.

Anyway, if I end up using wound tracks, all that pretty much goes out the window. Maybe there's some way I could still use hit dice, but I don't want to force it if it isn't doing something helpful.


You could add a roll for locations hit. You then modify the Damage Rolled by a location modifier.
I think I like the idea of imposing a debuff depending on the location that gets hit, e.g. you can't wield a weapon or shield in that hand anymore, or get a penalty to move speed, and similar. A while back I made a thread proposing that perhaps it would be the defender who got to choose where they got hit, allowing them to choose the debuff they got. This also likely wouldn't occur on every attack, perhaps just on critical hits or some similar mechanic. The effect might also be temporary, or easily removed with magic, but it could be interesting to have the effect persist over multiple encounters. Perhaps it's tied to the wound inflicted, so until that wound is healed, the debuff persists. A less severe wound then inflicts the same debuff, but is more easily removed.

That said, if wounds already cause debuffs, this might be unnecessary added complexity. But there might be a way to make it work.

[Amechra]

Now this is interesting, and I think you've convinced me to aim for a system that can do this, whether that's combining the damage and attack rolls or doing them separately or taking a third option.

There's actually a pretty old game that has a really elegant version of this. In Dragon Warriors, weapons all deal static damage, but they all have an Armour Bypass die. When you hit, you make an Armour Bypass roll vs. your target's Armour Factor — if your die rolls higher than their AF, you deal your full flat damage. If it doesn't, your weapon bounces off their armor. If you crit, however, you automatically bypass their armor.

The advantage this has over a more standard "armor reduces damage, some weapons ignore some of that reduction" is that it removes the need to set up special cases if you want to do something like, I dunno, make a weapon that deals a lot of damage but doesn't do well against armor.

...

I'll give the rest of this thread more of a read after work, but that bit just jumped out at me.

[Greywander]

I had an idea to combine wound tracks with another idea I had.

The original conception of the other idea was that each character would default to having two attacks. You could then choose to Power Attack, trading two regular attacks for one stronger attack, or Flurry, trading one regular attack for two weaker attacks.

In the overhaul I'm planning, all characters would get additional attacks as they level up. You'd get a second attack at 5th level, a third attack at 13th level, a fourth attack at 21st level... you know, if you don't cap the levels. Point is, there's a regular progression.

Now, what if we were to tweak this, so that this isn't so much "number of attacks" but rather "attack number"? When you take the Attack action, you'd then have the option to either Power Attack or Flurry, with the result scaling with your "attack number". For tier 1 characters, there is no difference, since their attack number is 1. But starting at 5th level, your attack number would increase to 2. If you Power Attack, you'd make one attack and roll two sets of damage dice. Or you could Flurry and make two attacks that each only roll one set of damage dice (so, basically the same as Extra Attack). Then at 13th level you're either Power Attacking with three sets of damage dice, or Flurrying for three attacks.

With a classic HP system, the Power Attack would need to do about double damage in order to make it worth it. Then there wouldn't be much of a meaningful distinction except in some specific edge cases (like a rogue wanting to make sure they get their Sneak Attack off). But with a wound track system, higher damage means a potentially more severe wound. This can cause debuffs and allow you to skip a less severe wound track, potentially killing an enemy faster, even though each attack can only inflict one wound at a time. Normally Flurry would be faster, since more attacks = more wounds, but skipping a track might save you more time if an enemy has lots of less severe wounds but fewer more severe wounds.

[Breccia]

you'd actually have two HP pools. I was going to call these pools Valor and Vigor.

This sounds like Stun and Body from the Champions RPG (https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1446/51/1446519364621.pdf). Why don't you take a look at their version and see if there's anything you like?

[olskool]

This sounds like Stun and Body from the Champions RPG (https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1446/51/1446519364621.pdf). Why don't you take a look at their version and see if there's anything you like?

We use a system based on Fantasy Hero that is similar. HP Damage equals STUN and when you reach ZERO, you are incapacitated. We then divide the Hit Point Damage by the PC's/NPC's Hit Die and each time the Hit Die is equaled or exceeded, the PC/NPC suffers a WOUND. You can take a number of Wounds equal to your CON score. The system works very well but we also reduce each class's Hit Die by one size (so Wizards have a 1D4 and Fighters a 1D8).

[somerandomhuman]

so my quick take on a system like this is
-on hit attacker rolls damage die
-if damage is greater than con mod+level a minor wound is inflicted
-if damage is greater than 2(con mod+level) an major wound is inflicted instead.
-you can suffer 2 times your level + con mod minor wounds. any additional ones become major
-you can suffer con mod major wounds
-if you reach your max on major wounds you die
-each major wound halves your speed and gives you a -3 to everything
-each minor wound gives you a -10 ft to movement
-every 3 minor wounds give you a -1 to everything

[Kane0]

If the goal is to rework 5e and still have it be largely identifiable as 'DnD' I would go with the dual HP counters rather than wound tracks. It would be like splitting the rest mechanic into short and long, and you could liken it to fleshing out Temp HP.