Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
oh right, just remembered, got a question.

what if I implemented a house rule where instead of adding health levels for each point of stamina you have, you instead multiply the total number of health levels you start with by the number of dots in stamina you have? do you think that it would change the game for better or worse?
That seems like too much, mainly due to Lunars. A starting Essence 3 Lunar in war form with Instinctive Stamina Unity and the 2nd Stamina Excellency can easily have 12 Stamina scene-long; 7*12 = 84 health levels. I can get a lot more than that if I actually put effort in.

There's a common houserule of giving a number of extra -0 health levels equal to your Essence, and one free purchase of Ox-Body per dot of Stamina. By that houserule, the same Lunar would have 55 health levels. Also a lot, but more reasonable, and a lot harder to abuse than if you multiply health levels by Stamina.

also, think it would be better if Ox-Body Technique gave you at least 10 health levels per purchase?
That makes it a must-have, and you get few enough Charm slots already. I prefer giving out free health levels to making OBT stronger.

Another concern with "Give out tons of health levels" fixes is how they interact with existing mechanics around health levels, particularly regeneration.

For example, the Adamant Skin Gem turns all lethal damage into bashing.
Celestial Battle Armor with Enhanced Healing heals 1B per tick.
A Lunar with Bruise-Relief Method can heal 1B per action.
An Essence 4 Sidereal can take the charm One Direction Invocation, which heals all bashing damage he's taken every action. That's already awesome, but if he has 4 dots of extra Stamina (from using Burn Life), and having 9 Stamina means he has 63 health levels, he's pretty much not going to die ever.
Storm's Eye Stance becomes awesome for Sidereals, since if you don't have to worry about instant death when you accept damage it turns into a very nice way to screw everyone you're fighting.
I can't think of any Solaroid regeneration charms, but Overdrive charms like Essence-Gathering Temper become pretty nice with this.

This is less broken without the Adamant Skin Gem, but Lunars can still regenerate 1L per action (errata'd Halt the Scarlet Flow) and Sids can get 2L (One Direction Invocation + their capstone Medicine charm).

Effects that require you pay health levels are normally pretty risky and tough decisions. Now? Ha. Abyssals with Blood Before Surrender become pretty much immune to mental influence, in yet another Sidereal example Unweaving Method becomes pretty beastly, and so on.

In short: giving out extra health levels is a good rule, but be careful about it.