Recovering from Injury

I've been using the following hit point recovery rules in my afterwork Gold and Glory campaign.  It is abstract and makes no claims to realism.  It is amalgamation of and inspired by EPT, Carcosa, OD&D and many blog posts.

First, Death and Dismemberment.  There are two types of damage; hitpoints and injuries (from DD table, broken bones, missing limbs, and the like).

Injuries include a largish penalty to Constitution (Con < 3 means coma).  They take a longish time (days, weeks) to heal.  [End of every day character rolls to recover point of Con. All healed up when original Con is reached.] Constitution modifies rolls on DD table.  So, adventuring while injured increases risk of death or (more) serious bodily injury.

At the start of each session all characters roll their hit dice (adjusted by current Constitution).  This total replaces their current hitpoints only if it is greater.   Represents recovery of stamina, luck, healing of minor scrapes, etc.  And is the character's max hitpoints until they reroll hit dice (at start of next session).  Healing, magical or otherwise, can not recover more hitpoints than this total.

There are non-magical ways to recover hitpoints during session. E.g. swigs of whiskey, post combat recovery.  Magic is mostly used to prevent bleeding to death or healing "real" injuries from DD table.  Healing is always based on hit dice of healee.  E.g. swig of whiskey heals 2 dice.  That would be 2d10 warrior and 2d4 for wizard.

Resting heals injuries (and linked Constitution penalty), not hitpoints.


The sessions I've used this are short, two hours.  It might not be as keen with longer sessions.  Maybe need to have a midpoint where hit dice are rolled again.