Functional 5E D&D Lingering Injuries

Hit Points

Hit Points (HP) represent two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a graze or near miss. As you become more experienced, you become more adept at parrying strikes, dodging attacks, and rolling with blows, such that you minimize or avoid significant physical trauma, but all this slowly wears you down. Also, in a fantasy world, higher level characters are more relevant to cosmic forces in the grand scheme of things, and they directly bend the malleable constraints of reality through inner power of their own.

Player Character Wound Points

In the standard rules all PCs have a Massive Damage threshold. It is the amount of damage that kills a character after 0 HP, bypassing Death Saves, which equals maximum Hit Points (HP). By using this variant rule system, this threshold also represents each PC's maximum Wound Points (WP). A character dies if they take more HP damage than their remaining WPs, or their WPs reach 0. When a character is dealt an Injury their WPs are deducted after HPs, not before.

Restoring Wound Points

Massive Damage (DMG p273)

When a creature takes damage from a single source equal to or greater than half its HP maximum or 30, whichever is lower, it must Succeed on a Constitution Saving Throw at DC 5 + 1/3 of the damage (round down). On a failure the creature suffers an injury, taking damage to its wound points accordingly.

Injury Severity Table

• Same turn injuries: If more than one injury is suffered on the same turn, only the most severe counts.
• Supression Roll: May perform a Con Save at the end of the characters turn to suppress all Minor injuries or as an Action to temporarily suppress a Light, Moderate or Serious injury at its appropriate DC.

Ways of becoming Proficient in the Endurance Skill

• As 1st level characters, Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Rangers, Paladins are automatically proficient in Endurance.
• Characters with the Backgrounds: Wildspacer, Uthgardt Tribe Member, Outlander, Baldur's Gate Outlander, Marine, Knight of Solamnia and Earthspur Miner are also automatically proficient in the Endurance Skill.
• Rogues, Druids, and Backgrounds that either grant or have as an option the Athletics or Survivor skills, may choose the Endurance skill as one of their skill options (where applicable).
• Endurance is not a Class Skill for Bards, Clerics, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Wizards, except as stated below.
• Gain proficiency, if not already proficient, in the Endurance skill those characters that take one of the following subclasses: Forge, Life, Order, Tempest or War Domain, Draconic Sorcerer, Pact of the Blade, Circle of the Moon, Transmuter, College of Valor or Blades, Swashbuckler or Scout, and Battle-Smith.
• These feats grant either proficiency or expertise in the Endurance Skill at the moment they are taken, or retroactively, Athlete, Weapon Master, Dwarven Fortitude, Orcish Fury, Dragon Hide, Infernal Constitution, Vampiric Exultation.

Features that grant Advantage to Constitution (Endurance) skill checks

• Characters with Expertise and the feat Vigor of the Hill Giant or Metabolic Control have Advantage on Endurance checks.
  
• Characters get Advantage on Endurance checks while raging either by a class feature or due to a similar special effect.

Critical Injury Tables and Damage Types