All this talk about HP being a ressource and the fact that the fighter is more or less the only class that can't heal himself got me thinking.
And I came to the conclusion that it might be a nice fighter fix to give him a feat that grants fast healing and that can be taken multiple times to give higher fast healing.
But I don't want it to be availiable to all those classes who have nice powers and are allowed to grab fighter feats so I think it should have a fighter class ability as prerequesite.
Bravery is bad enough but comes too early because 2 levels fighter are nice for dipping.
So what remains is armor training or weapon training.
Hard to kill (Combat)
Prerequisites: Armor training fighter class ability
Benefit: You gain a fast healing 1.
Special: You can get this feat multiple times and each time its effect stacks, increasing the fast healing by 1. The fast healing can never be higher than the bonus granted by your armor training ability.
Short answer. This is madness!
Long Answer. Who needs clerics and healers when the fighter is Wolverine-lite? No offence, but 1hp per turn is sort of insane, especially for the price of one feat which fighter has plenty of. The fact that it's fighter only seems a little biased as well, doesn't barbarian, rogue, ninja, ranger or cavalier need healing as much?
So you would say that fast healing should be taken off the inquisitor's list of judgement abilities? If it is so overpowered?
Or would it be ok for the fighter to have only during combat?
Or is it about fighters can't have nice things?
As to it being fighter only: Fighter's specials are feats. But most classes have more feats only they can take than the fighter. Lots of feats have class abilities as prerequesites.
There are feats for judgement, lay on hands, channel, hexes, spells etc.
So why can't there be feats for fighters only. Really only, not for the magus, the eldritch knight and others who can gain fighter only feats.
So another version:
Hard to kill (combat)
Prerequesite: Bravery, fighter level 3
At the beginning of your turn you can choose to gain fast healing 1 but you get -1 to all attacks made during that round. This bonus and penalty increases by +1/-1 every time the BAB reaches 4 or a multiple of 4 (like power attack).
If you are reduced to below 0hp while using this ability you automatically stabilize.
You can't use this feat out of combat.
The stalwart feats already makes something like this possible.
Getting DR is pretty much the same as fast healing in combat (Better or worse depending on your hit/round ratio).
On top of this, IMO DR fits the fighter thematically better than fast healing. Shrugging of attacks rather than his wounds mysteriously closing.
I thought if I suggest DR the answer would be: If you want DR play a barbarian.
And DR doesn't work on (most) spells and doesn't stop bleeding. And bleeding is something that I feel the fighter should be able to cope with because he is used to doing it.