Welcome back to The Anti-Rules Anthology. In our first post, The Anti-Rules Manifesto, we declared that the story must always come before the rulebook. Now, we are putting that philosophy into practice by targeting one of the biggest bottlenecks in dramatic combat: Hit Points, or HP.

For too long, combat has been an accounting exercise. Players roll damage, and the Dungeon Master (DM) subtracts numbers in secret. The fight drags on, lacking urgency, until the enemy suddenly hits zero and falls over. We are here to throw out the calculator and replace those abstract numbers with visceral, dramatic descriptions of injury. Our anti-rule solution is called Narrative Wounds.

The Problem with the HP Calculator

The rule we are breaking is the exact tracking of Hit Points down to the last digit.

The standard HP system is designed for accounting, not drama. It creates what we call the “Sponge Monster.” This is a creature that can take five or six solid sword strikes and a fireball right to the face, yet shows no visual sign of injury because its HP total is still high. It is functionally fine until it reaches one HP, and then it is instantly about to die. This disconnects the descriptive reality of a slicing sword from the mechanical reality of subtracting a number. The official D&D rules prioritize mechanical balance (link to SRD) over narrative flow and dramatic immersion.

This also creates “The 1 HP Hero,” the player character who has been battered all day but is still fighting perfectly. There is no sense of growing fatigue or major injury until they suddenly fall unconscious. Combat is a slow math problem where the descriptive reality is completely disconnected from the mechanical reality.

Our Goal: We want every single blow, whether from a player or a monster, to feel meaningful, and we want a monster’s condition to be obvious to everyone at the table.

The Anti-Rule Solution: Introducing the Narrative Wounds Track

Our fix is simple: Replace the precise HP number with a simplified, descriptive Narrative Wounds track. This track has four clear states, and creatures move down the track as they take significant damage.

Imagine combat like a tense action movie scene. You do not see a health bar. You see the fighter getting tired, getting cut, and slowing down. The Narrative Wounds track achieves this by attaching concrete penalties to different damage levels.

Here is the Narrative Wounds track we will use for both enemies and player characters:

Wound State	Narrative Description	Impact/Penalty
Unscathed/Fresh	Confident, energized, looking for an opening, shield is held high.	No penalty.
Scuffed/Winded	Starting to breathe heavy, minor cuts, needs a moment to recover.	Maybe a -1 penalty to general ability checks (DM’s discretion).
Wounded/Bloody	Major injury, moving slower, shield arm is bruised or a limb is favoring.	Disadvantage on a specific type of action (e.g., movement or strength checks).
Grave/Faltering	One foot in the grave, bleeding heavily, desperate to escape or finish the fight.	Disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks.
Down	Incapacitated, knocked out.	Roll Death Saves (or whatever your system is for being unconscious).

If a player is hit while at the Grave/Faltering level, they might be forced into a severe Complication (link to Complication Post) instead of just falling.

How to Implement the Wound Track in Combat

Switching to this system requires a change in how you think and speak about damage.

1. Stop Announcing Numbers

As the DM, the first step is to never say, “The Orc takes 12 damage.” That is meaningless information.

Instead, you use the damage roll to inform your description and update the Wound State. For a fresh Orc, a decent hit might move them from Fresh to Scuffed.

You say: “You carve a deep gash across the Orc’s chest, knocking it down from Fresh to Scuffed. It roars in anger, but you notice its movements are slower now.”

2. Use the Damage Roll as a Gauge

You still roll damage, but you use the size of the damage roll to determine the intensity of the blow and how many steps the enemy moves down the track.

• A small amount of damage on a big monster might only move them down one step.
• A massive critical hit should skip a state entirely. For instance, a critical hit against a basic bandit should move them from Fresh directly to Wounded, or perhaps Down. This is the DM’s judgment call, and it is based on what feels cool.

3. The Crucial Rule: Ending Combat Quickly

To eliminate the “Sponge Monster” problem, we use a crucial Anti-Rule: Once a creature hits the Wounded/Bloody state, the fight is almost over.

The next solid hit from a player (of medium or high damage) must drop the enemy to Down.

This rule guarantees that the final stages of combat are fast, brutal, and dramatic, proving the power of the Narrative Wounds system.

A Practical Example in Play

Let us see how using Narrative Wounds changes a classic combat exchange. The party is fighting a huge, terrifying Minotaur.

Player (Rogue): “I stab the Minotaur in the back with my poisoned dagger!”

DM (Before Anti-Rules): “Okay, you deal 15 damage. The Minotaur has 32 HP left. Next turn.” (Boring!)

DM (With the Narrative Wound Track): “Yes! Your dagger sinks in right between its shoulder blades. The Minotaur stumbles and moves from Fresh to Scuffed. It turns on you with a look of pure rage, but its huge axe is swinging a beat slower than before. It is angry, but it is hurt. Describe that feeling, Rogue.”

The player’s action is immediately affirmed. They know exactly how much closer they are to victory, and they know the Minotaur is already starting to suffer penalties. The story comes first.

Time to End the Calculator Age

Tracking Hit Points is tedious, and it robs your game of dramatic tension. By switching to the Narrative Wounds track, you give your players the best information possible: how close they are to winning and how badly hurt their enemy truly is. The DM’s true job is to be the Chief Storyteller.

Give this system a try in your next session. You will find combat flows faster, players feel more connected to their damage rolls, and the final moments of a fight will be more exciting than ever before. Learn more about this philosophy in our Anti-Rules Manifesto.

Tomorrow we are moving from injury to flow. We will be discussing Flow State Fighting: How to Scrap Fixed Initiative to make every combat feel like a chaotic, fast-paced action movie scene. Until then, happy DMing!