I pondered a houserule, especially for 4e where going below 0hp isn't very scary since you heal up from 0 hp. Which is a good rule in my opinion, it's really stupid when you heal up somebody and they just go down immidiatly because the 30hp you healed only brought them up to 2 hp.
What I want is a rule that makes going down a worse thing than it is already, and not something you shrug off right after taking a rest. My idea is that when you go down, you reduce your max hp with an amount equal to your max negative hp. This lasts until you have taken an extended rest. It's not supposed to change your healing surge value or anything else, it just makes your character a bit more fragile.
Example: your character has 80hp, gets beaten down to -10 hp, and then to -15hp before getting healed. Your new max is 80-15 = 65 until you take a long rest. If you go into another combat and gets down to -7 hp, your max is still 65.
What I think this can accomplish is to make players heal earlier and to feel that a fight was more nasty if they have some after effects after taking a short rest. The effect shouldn't be too bad though, it only makes your character a bit more frail.
EDIT: I should probably have talked a bit more on the premises of this house rule. My current campaign is being played in such a way that you can often have, on average, less than one fighting encounter per day. This makes healing surge attrition basically useless. What the characters don't necessarily have time for is a long rest if a good conditions (like an in, or somewhere where you are taken care of).
I don't have a hard time making the actual fights dangerous, I adjust the damage the mobs do so it stays at the same level relative to character hp as it is at level 1. I also adjust the to-hit/defenses of mobs so the mobs usually hits on around 10-13 and the characters hits on a 6-9 on a d20. This is mostly done to avoid the mobs having too high defenses. As a player you often only roll one to-hit in a round, and missing multiple times in a row gets really boring and feels "grindy".
What I see from a lot of posts is to put more focus on the healing surges, which is something I don't really like. As a player, if I end up at <= 2 healing surges, I would always try to get an extended rest, mostly because in combat, if you end up at 0 healing surges you are basically out of options.
That's the reason I would rather introduce a new temporary HP cap is that in a fight you still have lots of tactical options when it comes to using/triggering healing surges and I find fights with daily powers to be tactically more interesting. At the same time you character is more frail if you aren't careful about keeping him above 0 hp the whole time. In other words, it introduces a second goal to a fight on top of winning it - keep your character above 0 hp. This also means that the players hopefully are more inclined to wrap up fights in other ways than just killing all the opponents. Maybe some diplomacy or just pulling back makes more sense.
What I want is a rule that makes going down a worse thing than it is already, and not something you shrug off right after taking a rest. My idea is that when you go down, you reduce your max hp with an amount equal to your max negative hp. This lasts until you have taken an extended rest. It's not supposed to change your healing surge value or anything else, it just makes your character a bit more fragile.
Example: your character has 80hp, gets beaten down to -10 hp, and then to -15hp before getting healed. Your new max is 80-15 = 65 until you take a long rest. If you go into another combat and gets down to -7 hp, your max is still 65.
What I think this can accomplish is to make players heal earlier and to feel that a fight was more nasty if they have some after effects after taking a short rest. The effect shouldn't be too bad though, it only makes your character a bit more frail.
EDIT: I should probably have talked a bit more on the premises of this house rule. My current campaign is being played in such a way that you can often have, on average, less than one fighting encounter per day. This makes healing surge attrition basically useless. What the characters don't necessarily have time for is a long rest if a good conditions (like an in, or somewhere where you are taken care of).
I don't have a hard time making the actual fights dangerous, I adjust the damage the mobs do so it stays at the same level relative to character hp as it is at level 1. I also adjust the to-hit/defenses of mobs so the mobs usually hits on around 10-13 and the characters hits on a 6-9 on a d20. This is mostly done to avoid the mobs having too high defenses. As a player you often only roll one to-hit in a round, and missing multiple times in a row gets really boring and feels "grindy".
What I see from a lot of posts is to put more focus on the healing surges, which is something I don't really like. As a player, if I end up at <= 2 healing surges, I would always try to get an extended rest, mostly because in combat, if you end up at 0 healing surges you are basically out of options.
That's the reason I would rather introduce a new temporary HP cap is that in a fight you still have lots of tactical options when it comes to using/triggering healing surges and I find fights with daily powers to be tactically more interesting. At the same time you character is more frail if you aren't careful about keeping him above 0 hp the whole time. In other words, it introduces a second goal to a fight on top of winning it - keep your character above 0 hp. This also means that the players hopefully are more inclined to wrap up fights in other ways than just killing all the opponents. Maybe some diplomacy or just pulling back makes more sense.
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