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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Helldritch" data-source="post: 7879573" data-attributes="member: 6855114">From the 1st edition up to today’s 5ed this topic has come up every single time. Whether it is for new players or old ones, it seems that every single player and DM have their idea on what HP represent. For me, and those at my table, only the HPs received at 1st level are ‘meat’. All others are simply luck, skills and divine (however small) intervention.In my campaign, we use the No hp recover through rest. Only used HD can heal you.WARNING: HOUSE RULE!We added the rule that if you are at “0 hp” you automatically use one HD after 1 hour (short rest) if you have one remaining or otherwise, you have to wait 8 hours to automatically use your HD. We also make a difference between being brought to zero hp or being brought to below zero. At zero hp you’re just knocked out for the rest of the fight (unless healed). Below zero, you have to start your death save. We have no limits on how many HP below zero you can go. Any magical healing received bring you up from zero to whatever the spell did. Natural healing (along with medical treatment) starts from the negative points you were at. Each day you are in the negatives, you have to roll a death save. On a failure, you have to make another death save until you have three success (you stabilize) or three failure (you die). Each day you’re in the negatives, you get one exhaustion level. As long as you are in the negative, you only recover one HD per day.I often give the example of Bob the farmer, Dan the guard and Khor the Barbarian.Bob the farmer is a beast of man with a grand total of 7 hp. An orc swings at him with its axe and does 7 points of damage. Bob falls down, knocked down. Had the axe inflicted 8 points of damage, Bob would be bleeding and dying. Now he’s just unconscious.Dan the guard comes to help and fight the orc. The Orc swings at Dan the guard and with a solid hit does a whole 15 points of damage. Dan the guard as a second level fighter has 21 hp. Dan is hurt but still have a good fighting spirit. With a wince he checks his battered shield and chain mail but he can go on. Only luck and skill saved him. He knows that Bob would’ve died from that hit. A second hit from the orc brings Dan to “-8 hp”. Dan is now bleeding out his life, his wounds are terrible and he might not make it.Khor the barbarian has 150 HPs. He fights the same orcs as the other two. The orc raises its axe and swing mightily at Khor. At the last instant Khor deflects the axe blades but the strain of deflecting such a blow makes him wince (the orc inflicted 15 points of damage). Through out the fight, Khor dodges, deflects, and absorbs 135 points of damages. An arrow is lodged in his deltoid but fortunately, only the skin was pierced. Quite a lucky event, had he not side step at the last moment it would have hit his heart… At the end of the battle, Khor is bruised all over his body. He took quite a beating but he knows that most of it won’t be there on the morrow. He removes the arrow inflicting himself 1 point of damage. He sows the wound himself, biting on a leather strap to avoid screaming.Now on healing…Bob is unconscious until the morning where he recovers only 4 hp with his HD roll. Bob is now awake. He’s hurt, but he’s alive.Dan on the other has stabilized but he’s not out of the woods. With no healer around, he’s in for a tough time. He recovers a HD and rolls only 7 hp. He is still at -1 (treated as zero). He does not wake up. He is still in the woods and people are careful not to move him too much. Dan might get sick from having received such wounds. A con save will be required. A makes it so he is still stable. He can’t spend another HD because he’s still in the negative (-1) so he does not have any. The second day, he wakes up, recovering 9 hp (bringing him up to 8 above zero). He feels like hell but he’s alive.Khor the barbarian gets a much appreciated rest along with quite a few beers from the village’s grateful inhabitants for his part in saving their skins. He wakes up and spend 5 of his 10 recovered HD on healing. He wants to keep some just in case. He’s relatively unlucky and only recover 45 hp. He’s still bruised and beaten but he will manage as he always has. The arrow wound is still there but it already looks a lot better. Good thing his mother has shown him how to sow a wound.Although I do not use gritty realism, this way handling healing has shown my players how much magical healing is powerful. They now respect a lot more their healers (whether they be bard, cleric, druid or whatever else is their healer at the time).</blockquote>

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