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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 5796570" data-attributes="member: 3424">I certainly think that some way for all characters to effectively recover hit points should be at least an option, although the term "healing surges" need not necessarily be used. Divine characters could have cure personal wounds, for example, while Psionic characters could have cell adjustment.Martial characters are a bit trickier, but I suggested a VP/HP system for them in another post (reproduced in SBLOCK).[SBLOCK]Let's say martial characters have a Vigor Reserve equal to the number of healing surges they would normally have. At the start of each adventuring day, and during each short rest, they can spend a point from their Vigor Reserve to gain a number of Vigor Points (VP) equal to one-quarter their normal hit points. Damage is usually taken off VP first, before being taken off hit points, but the DM may rule that certain types of damage (such as ongoing damage) bypass VP. When an attack is completely absorbed by a martial character's VP, he may choose for that attack to affect him as if it had missed, apart from the VP loss. Hence, an attack that deals damage and dazes the target would not daze a martial character if the damage dealt was less than his VP and it had no effect on a miss. A martial character's VP is normally capped at one-quarter of his normal hit points. However, when he is reduced to half hit points or less, his VP cap increases to half his normal hit points. The increased sense of danger inspires a temporary increase in the martial character's ability to dodge attacks - until he runs out of Vigor Reserves and/or hit points, anyway.A martial character can use the Second Wind action to spend a point from his Vigor Reserve and regain VP equal to one-quarter his full normal hit points, subject to his current VP cap.A martial character's Vigor Reserve is replenished when he takes an extended rest. Hit points are recovered more slowly, at the rate of (level/2, minimum 1) per extended rest.The net effect of these changes is that martial characters, when fresh, would have more effective hit points than characters of the other power sources. However, because VP act as a buffer and actual hit points lost can only be recovered slowly, or through magic, the number of effective hit points they have at the start of each fight would tend to go down over the course of an extended adventure. However, their ability to use VP to turn hits into misses (apart from VP loss) means that they are also better at avoiding conditions. One downside is the need to track a separate pool of effective hit points, especially since martial characters have traditionally been less complicated than arcane and divine characters.[/SBLOCK]</blockquote>

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