Natural Healing House Rule

[Mark Hall]

So, I've been toying around with Natural Healing rates, and here's my current thought:

HD + Con Modifier + 1 if Con Prime per day, double if on full rest.

Too generous?

[serleran]

Are your games full of lethal encounters on a regular basis, where the characters need around maximum HP to survive? Do you play often? These kinds of questions far outweigh what any one thinks.

For example, in my game, we play once a week, for almost 2 hours, if we're lucky (scheduled for 4, but we spend at least half that just BSing) and I throw heavy stuff at the party... and, since its mostly combat or puzzles, and a game day takes almost 4 months to play, I try to make sure they've got healing available. After all, it won't be fun to throw 6 age 12 dragons at them if I "know" they're going to die...
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[Sir Osis of Liver]

To better facilitate healing, I've houseruled into my game that clerics can spontaneously cast "Cure...Wounds" spells into appropriate slots so that they don't have to prepare loads of those spells. I've also been generous with setting-specific healing potions, so they should have no excuses for not being able to heal up when I beat them down (and I have been known to beat my party up from time to time).

[Mark Hall]

Actually, I do allow clerics to spontaneously cast Cure spells, and even allow them to be "long cast" for more healing (i.e. you can take a number of rounds equal to the number of HP you want to cure, to a maximum of 8)... it's just that, at lower levels, an accumulation of CLW takes a while to fully heal several people who are beat down.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Mark Hall wrote:
Actually, I do allow clerics to spontaneously cast Cure spells, and even allow them to be "long cast" for more healing (i.e. you can take a number of rounds equal to the number of HP you want to cure, to a maximum of 8)... it's just that, at lower levels, an accumulation of CLW takes a while to fully heal several people who are beat down.

I like the idea of the "Long cast" version of the spell. That's something that probably wouldn't happen during combat, I'm guessing. Are they doing that doing rest periods, or are you actually allowing the clerics to do that during combat?

[Mark Hall]

They can TRY during combat, I suppose, but it's mostly a downtime issue. "Ok, the fight's over... we spend five minutes casting healing spells on everyone." Rather than rolling and getting annoyingly low results, they sacrifice some time to get more HP.

[koralas]

Mark Hall wrote:
They can TRY during combat, I suppose, but it's mostly a downtime issue. "Ok, the fight's over... we spend five minutes casting healing spells on everyone." Rather than rolling and getting annoyingly low results, they sacrifice some time to get more HP.

Well if it is during an actual adventure, I would say no, or, well scale it back quite a bit.

Day 1: No healing if Con is not prime, +1hp if Con is Prime

Day 2: Con Modifier (minimum of 0), +1hp if Con is Prime

Day 3+: +1/Cumulative + Con Modifier (minimum of 0), +1/Cumulative if Con is Prime

This is with moderate activity. If at light activity (normal day to day in town), double the rate, if at full rest, triple the rate.

However, if the character takes any additional damage, it resets the clock, so you fall back to day 1.

For example,

Day 1 of adventure Bruiser the barbarian takes 5hp damage, he is Str, Dex, and Con prime (human obviously), and Whimpy the Wizard takes 3hp damage (Int and Dex Prime Elf). At the end of the day Bruiser heals 1hp, Whimpy does not regain any hp.

Day 2 they continue their trek, and neither takes any damage, Bruiser heals 3hp (+2 con bonus, +1 prime), and Whimpy still does not regain any hp (+0 Con bonus, Con not prime).

Day 3 they face a couple of orcs and Bruiser takes 3hp damage, Whimpy does not take any. Bruiser heals 1hp (Con Prime), and Whimpy heals 1hp.

Day 4 neither takes damage, Whimpy heals 2hp (puts him back to max) while Bruiser heals 3hp which leaves him one short of max hp.

[Mark Hall]

Too much book-keeping for me, koralas.

[serleran]

You know, one pretty simple way, which may be too much, would be to just have it do something like this:

Level +1, if Constitution is Prime. Otherwise, just Level.

Or, you could have healing be a SIEGE Check...

d20 + level + Constitution modifier >= 12/18 + static modifier (I'd assign something like 4-10) perhaps based on the severity of sustained damage. If the check is successful, the character heals maximum HD type. If it fails, they get 1 HP back only. Full rest or situational modifiers can apply to further reduce the chance of healing (ie, from a disease) or to increase it, as would any condition for the check.

This would mean that higher level characters tend to heal much more rapidly, but they also (typically) have access to healing spells and potions anyway so that is not unusual except in the case where you want them to use those resources...

In the end, it all comes down to what tangents can be sacrificed for the flavor you want. Me, I go Dr. Pepper and throw it all in.
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