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Message: <blockquote data-quote="smathis" data-source="post: 4105690" data-attributes="member: 56465">I agree with Kenneth on this point. My preferences, though, are for Low/No-Magic settings where "healing magic" is either non-existent or very difficult to come by. Hence, 3.x and I never got along. But I'm liking the Healing Surges in 4e. So take what's below on the assumption that magic that would heal wounds is not happenstance.Continuing in the tradition of one of my favorite brainstorms of late, here's suggestions. Some are mine and others are just some of the best I've heard so far.1.Taking a critical hit uses up a Healing Surge.2.Recovering healing surges after a 6 hour rest is determined by rolling a hit die and adding your Con bonus. this way, it's entirely possible to have a bad 6-hours of rest and not wake up at full strength. This would only apply to dungeons and such, though, where the PC is sleeping in tense, uncomfortable, uncertain or potentially unsafe conditions. A 6-hour rest at an Inn would bring a PC full up.3.With a nod to SWSE and Earthdawn, a PC takes a Persistent Condition when dropped below zero hitpoints. Multiple Persistent Conditions are applied and stack like the Condition Track in SWSE. To remove a Persistent Condition, roll a save after a 6-hour rest. Like with regular saves, rolling a '20' removes all Persistent Conditions. Otherwise, only one roll per day can be made to remove them. Or just keep the normal save rules and roll a die for each condition. So a PC with -5 in Persistent Conditions would roll 3d20. On a roll of 4, 11 and 15, he would go from -5 to -1.Alternately, the Persistent Conditions could subtract (-1, -2, -5, -10) from the PCs Healing Surges at the start of each day. I'm reluctant to penalize Healing Surges with both 2 and 3, though.Earthdawn would apply the penalty to hit points. But maybe the scale should change if that is the case? Maybe -2, -10%, -20%, -50% would work? A -10 at even 3-4th level would be pretty weak, from what I've seen.I'm reluctant to go the route of temporary ability scores. Just too fidgety for my tastes. So I'd prefer if a Persistent Condition either applied as a negative to attack/skill rolls or take off a percentage of Hit Points at the start of each day. But not both.4.If a PC fails three saves after being dropped below zero or takes enough damage to move to "negative bloodied" (in other words if the PC would normally die), the Player may opt to stabilize the character by opting for a "Long Term Injury". This injury would have an agreed-upon effect on one of the PCs ability scores or movement (Player's Choice). But other than that, it would mostly be flavor.Examples would be Frodo's wound from the Nazgul that would "never properly heal" in LotR. Or Luke Skywalker getting his hand chopped off. Sure, they may have had a minor effect on the PC's stats. But nothing that prevented the character from contributing to the story.The immediate story would change (as it did in the examples) to "Ohmigod! We've got to get [insert name here] some help! Quick!" But that could be fun too. Escaping a hostile dungeon with a wounded comrade is just as viable as any MacGuffin, IMO.</blockquote>

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