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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5882762" data-attributes="member: 54877">I've struggled with this problem in multiple systems, not just D&D, and I think the trick is that solutions that really work are either fiddly or end up doing something that a lot of people don't like (for a variety of reasons).  Even your "percentage" idea will break down in places, because it will mean that fairly tough fights will do often cause the players to feel like they "hit the wall" due to not being able to restore very much.  That is, you have two or three "easy" fights, lose maybe 10% total of your normal hit points to this "permanent" loss, and are still feeling fine.  Then you get in this really nasty fight, everyone goes down to single digits during it, and suddenly there is another 20% off. Getting the percentage correct here is the tricky part, because it has to be precisely strong enough to bite a little on the easier fights but not be a killer after a couple of tougher fights.  Realistically, you only get that if the system is built on attrition, and a "tough" fight will routinely do only about 50% of your hit points, even with some bad luck.  But in turn, that won't feel very threatening, and will certainly irritate those who like a more dangerous feel from each fight. As far as how to manage it, I've considered using some kind of "recovery" stat, that gradually decreases with damage (and to get full use out of it, other things, like getting hit with crits, "life draining" magic, exhaustion, etc.).  A simple version of it would be something like this: You have a single number that is your "recovery" ability.  Fully rested and healed, this is equal to your hit points.  This is how much hit points you can recover to.  Certainly, take some damage, lose a bit off of "recovery"--maybe 10% of the damage taken.  So far, that's merely another way of handling your percentage, but with a lower percentage to reflect that this is not the only way it decreases.  For the other ways it can decrease, you'd probably want several optional ways, and each group can pick.  For example, "Get in a fight, lose 1d4 from recovery.  Get in a really nasty fight, lose 1d6 or an even bigger die."  Then you can make things like that happen before or after healing takes place.  Get hit by a crit, lose 1d4 from recovery.  Hit zero or less hit points, lose 1d6 from recovery after each attempt to magically heal you.  And so forth.   Then the people that want fewer fights per day, even 1 or less, leave the traditional part of hit points alone.  Damage stays the same.  Using resources to heal works the same.  But you use different options for the "recovery" stat refreshing.  If you have no more than one fight per day, then make it so that it takes a week or more to fully refresh "recovery".</blockquote>

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