Quick Rules: Death's Door

With the new Castles & Crusades campaign I've started, I decided to address the issue of hit points in the game.  You see, I like and 'get' the idea that hit points are an abstraction so hit points were never a problem for me.  Others do away with them completely and adopt a wound track.  A good solution seems to drop them down and implement a bit more damage reduction and fighting options to actively parry ... deflect... and counter possible blows.  Sometimes it just gets more complicated that it's worth.  Besides, hit points are pretty much part of the system I want to play.

So what to do?

Simple... keep them as-is with the following two rule amendments:

1) Survivors regain half the hit points lost in combat (rounded down) at the end of combat.
2) Those who are struck down to below zero hit points make a Constitution based Saving Throw.  A success indicates that they live and failure indicates death.

You see?  Simple.  It has the advantage of allowing characters to press on but doesn't negate the notion that combat is deadly either.  Those who were unlucky or simply foolish enough to allow their character to be felled won't know till after the combat if the character lives or dies.

For those that still think this is harsh, you could always allow a healer to assist the character during combat to either improve the odds or simply allow the recipient to live.

I know some of you may feel that the allowing to gain back half the hitpoints lost after combat is maybe too generous or even akin to something out of a video game but it does help the lower level parties survive and it frees the Cleric from being a dedicated health point dispenser.

Seems to be working well enough so far...

M