Contributor
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Okay, Crazy Talk Time.
I've been running using Spell Points for a long while now, and as part of that, I allow unlimited 0-level spells. For obvious reasons, I ditched CmW and created a stabilize spell just like Jason did (except mine brings you to 0 hp, unconscious and stable).
I've been doing this for a while and it works. It even works well.
BUT...
I've also been thinking about two related issues. The 15 minute adventuring day and encounter design.
People run out of healing magic and other resources and pack it in and call it a day. We all know this problem.
Or they decide to push on and do one more encounter, and suddenly, they are in TPK-land. The DM then writes a nasty letter to Paizo and Greg Vaughan because the encounter was too hard. Meanwhile, some other group rested and hit that same encounter fresh, and say it was a cakewalk.
So, I've started to believe that designing a balanced encounter would be a heck of a lot easier if you could make the default assumption that everyone was healed up at the beginning of most encounters.
Now don't get me wrong. I know that resource management is part of the game, and I LOVE that it is part of the game, but I think that hp are too important a resource (and frankly have too big an impact on your other resources; clerics still are mostly dedicated healbots, when they have so many cool utility spells) to screw around with too much.
So I am going to playtest Cure Minor Wounds as always available.
Now, before you eat me alive, consider the following. You can cast it once per round. That means 10 per minute, meaning that in 10 minutes you can heal a total of 100 hp. Divide that up among a party of 4 characters and that's an average of 25 hp each. After a big fight, it's going to take a little while to pump everyone back up. Long enough for reinforcements or a random encounter, if you want to put the pressure on. And really in combat CmW is pretty useless except to stabilize a dying character. That 1 hp will never be seen as making enough difference to be worth the effort.
PCs will still run out of spells and stuff, and have to camp sometimes. But mostly, you can keep the action going, and designers can rest a little easier knowing that the tough encounter isn't going to kill some party that would have beaten it if they camped for the night before opening the last door in the dungeon.
One more thing. My bro, the Scribbling Rambler, has a similar rule that he's trying in his game. He's made a spell (I forget what it's called) it has a 1 minute casting time (or is it ten minutes?) and it allows you to make a Heal skill roll. I believe the DC is 10 or 15, and for every point that you beat the DC by, you heal 1 hp. It's a little more complicated, but it does give you a reason other than caltrops to take the heal skill.
While a bit of a threadjack (and not really addressing your post), I started planning an Iron Heroes game. IH uses the Reserve point system from Unearthed Arcana.
I have found that this system easily addresses healing problems between ecounters while making fights dangerous. Players do not have unlimited healing though.
Still, in many ways, what you suggest is not THAT different in effect, though the possibility to always have maxed hit points is there.
There's the Reserve Points system from Unearthed Arcana that I'll be giving a whirl in my PbP. We'll see how it work in implementation.
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There's the Reserve Points system from Unearthed Arcana that I'll be giving a whirl in my PbP. We'll see how it work in implementation.
I just implemented this in my Savage Tide campaign as well. It's been a big help. Now my cowardly players don't run away after the first encounter, but after the second or even the third.
I could get behind Reserve Points being core.
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I am highly intrigued by Monte Cook's Health and Grace points. I'm looking to playtest with them and see how things turn out. Being able to rest and get your Grace points back would help immensely, and the descriptive side of starting to lose Health would help with the abstraction of HP. I'd call it Health and Stamina tho.