Healing Spells and Hit Points (House Rule)

Ok, this is a house rule that I never used but always tinkered about... I remembered about it because of a topic on RPG.Net about funny bugs of rules systems (it’s hilarious, check it out) where a member commented that in D&D (3.5, Pathfinder or “lower” editions) the higher your level and your health (Constitution) the more time it took for you character to heal. Common sense would lead us to think the contrary – I know, it’s dangerous to use that word on RPGs, but you know what I meant.

The 3^rd Edition already improved upon the original system, by stating that a character recovers his level per day instead of just 1 hit point. While I don’t see the need to improve this, I also believe that there’s no harm in changing this rule to “Your character heals his level plus Constitution modifier (minimum 1) per day of rest. Any character is completely healed after a month of rest, no matter how many hit points were lost”.

Now, the real change. Cure spells. I already proposed a suggestion about how to really abstract hit points, divorcing them from physical wounds. This house rule attempts to do the same and can even be utilized with that subsystem. Here’s how it works: cure spells now heal in proportion to a character’s Hit Points’ total.

Cure light wounds heals 1d8 damage + 1/level (max +5) or 10% of the character’s full Hit Points, whichever is higher.

Cure moderate wounds heals the usual amount or 20% and cure serious wounds heals 30%. Heal either heals 10 hit points/caster level (maximum 150 hp) or 60%.

Let’s see this rule on Fighters and Wizards of different levels (supposes that the cleric always rolls "4"):

6^th level Fighter with 50 hp + cure light wounds by a 5^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 5 hp (10%) = No improvement.

6^th level Wizard with 30 hp + cure light wounds by a 5^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 3 hp (10%) = No improvement.

10^th level Fighter with 85 hp + cure light wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 8 hp (10%) = No improvement.

10^th level Wizard with 48 hp + cure light wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 4 hp (10%) = No improvement.

15^th level Fighter with 130 hp + cure light wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 13 hp (10%) = Slight improvement.

15^th level Wizard with 70 hp + cure light wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 7 hp (10%) = No improvement.

20^th level Fighter with 180 hp + cure light wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 18 hp (10%) = 100% improvement.

20^th level Wizard with 90 hp + cure light wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 9 hp (10%) = No improvement.

As you can see there’s no improvement for d6 HD characters, but we’re talking about cure light wounds, check it with a merely cure moderate wounds:

6^th level Fighter with 50 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 5^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 10 hp (20%) = Slight improvement.

6^th level Wizard with 30 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 5^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 6 hp (20%) = No improvement.

10^th level Fighter with 85 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 25 hp (20%) = Great improvement.

10^th level Wizard with 48 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 14 hp (20%) = Great improvement.

15^th level Fighter with 130 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 39 hp (20%) = Great improvement.

15^th level Wizard with 70 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 21 hp (20%) = Great improvement.

20^th level Fighter with 180 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 54 hp (20%) = Amazing improvement.

20^th level Wizard with 90 hp + cure moderate wounds by a 10^th level Cleric à 9 hp healed or 27 hp (20%) = Great improvement.

That with a 2^nd level spell, nothing bad, huh?

However, if you believe that this is too much, I offer a second option: each cure spell has 2 versions – a combat version and a ritual version. The ritual version has a casting time multiplied by 10 (usually 1 minute) but has the potential of healing more (at higher levels).

Well, that's it. I hope this idea can be of help to you.