Healing, Rest, and Dying

HEALING AND REST

Characters recover 1 hit point of damage every day, provided that normal sleep is possible. Characters who choose full bed rest regain an additional hit point each evening. Healing potions and salves can increase the rate of healing further.   Normal characters require 6 hours sleep out of every 24. Subtract from this number of hours the character's Constitution bonus; so a character with 18 Constitution needs only 3 hours sleep per night (and a character with 3 Constitution needs 9 hours). Note that these figures are minimums; given a choice, most characters would prefer to sleep two or more hours longer. Especially strenuous days might require more sleep.   Characters who get less than the required amount of sleep suffer a -1 penalty on all attack rolls and saving throws (as well as not receiving any hit points of healing). For each additional night where sufficient sleep is not received, the penalty becomes one point worse. Regardless of how long the character has gone without adequate sleep, the normal amount of sleep will remove these penalties.  

CONSTITUTION POINT LOSSES

Any character who has lost Constitution points temporarily (such as due to a disease) may regain them with normal rest. The rate of recovery is one point per day, awarded each morning when the character awakens from a normal night's sleep. If more than one Constitution point was lost, the character must make a save vs. Death Ray (without adjustments) to regain the final point; failure results in a permanent loss of that point.   If a Constitution loss results in a lower bonus or penalty, the character's maximum hit points must be reduced appropriately; for instance, a character reduced from 16 to 15 Constitution goes from +2 to +1, thus losing one hit point per die rolled. If a reduction in maximum hit points reduces that figure to less than the character's current hit points, reduce the current hit points to the new maximum hit point figure immediately.   When regaining Constitution, any increase that increases the character's Constitution bonus results in the restoration of the hit points lost due to the reduction, added to the maximum hit point figure only. Current hit points will not be improved in this fashion, but rather must be regained by normal healing.  

DEATH AND DYING: Negative Hit Points

The rules state that, at zero hit points, the character is dead. Instead of stopping at zero hit points after a hit that would drop the character, the GM will keep track of how much damage exceeded over the last hit point in negative hit points. At the end of each round after he or she falls, the character loses an additional hit point. If a total of the player's Constitution divided by 2 is reached in negative hit points, the character is dead. Before this point is reached, the character may have his or her wounds bound and/or receive magical healing, which will stabilize the character. The injured character may not move more than a few feet without help, nor fight, nor cast spells, until his or her hit points are again greater than zero. Spellcasters who survive being reduced to zero or negative hit points lose all currently prepared spells.  

DEATH AND DYING: “Save or Die” Poison

Where a “save or die” poison is indicated, the victim must make a save vs. Poison or suffer 1d6 damage per round for 10 rounds, starting the round following the exposure to the poison; this is an average of 35 points of damage, but even a first level character might survive with a combination of luck and healing magic. The GM may create poisons which vary from these figures, of course.